(I wrote this for a Writing the Environment class and I think it turned out better than expected)
Buds
It starts small, like most things,
A seed within the ground
That germinates and pushes through
Bursting with life silently, without a sound
The world was once without flowers
Nothing but shades of muted brown and green
Until they added a splash of deep, vibrant hues
Every budding painter's kaleidoscope dream
In Darwin's evolutionary game
Plants in their still brilliance, chose wisely
Choosing colors and sweet scents not meant for me
But I take pleasure in them anyway
In survival of the fittest, flowers
Survive in the quietest of ways
They ask for very little, but give freely
As much as a bee wants for the rest of its days
I, too, like a busy bee, flit from bud to bud
Drink in every curve of every whorl
Peering closely with a magnified lens
As they sway in the breeze or slowly unfurl
Flowers are the Earth's dancers
Revealing their grace slowly but surely
Dancing on stage with the curtains closed
Moving and twirling for no one's sake but their own
I try to pull the curtains back, take a peek
And each little species in its little way can teach me
The things I've been unknowingly missing
But can savor whenever I want to slow down and see
Flowers that hold a certain type of magic
Roots, stems and leaves dance and call rain
Even we wilted, we seldom call them tragic
Yet we wonder if they feel any pain
They do a great job of easing of mine, my troubled mind
In these unassuming buds, I can always find a friend
Catharsis
Hey there reader.
I know I haven't written on this blog for awhile, but with everything that's happened this past week (it's only been less than a week really) I am having trouble processing a lot of thoughts and emotions. I believe in talk therapy and how just talking about your feelings can really help. Though lately, not just in the past few days but perhaps even the past few years, I am struggling with that idea. Like I used to crave being able to talk about things, but now even though I have found people I feel like I can talk to about these struggles that I'm having, talking doesn't seem to help.
And that's mainly because, I can't really talk properly with all the feelings of sadness, anger, grief just making it even hard to breathe. The words are not coming out right and it just leaves me feeling drained, not relieved.
So in an effort to find some level of catharsis, I naturally gravitated to this blog and to writing because, even though I don't write as often as I would like, this blog used to be such a greatly therapeutic place for me to write and process my thoughts and feelings. Just writing this post, which is only a prelude to the enormous volume of things I have to say, I making me feel better.
Just to keep everything organized, here is a list of things that I will purposely take some time to write about, perhaps in separate posts, and in no particular order:
1. Bo Burnham's Make Happy. I saw this Friday night, the day before the weekend of the shootings happened and hit me. It's something I want to fangirl about, but I feel like it's not appropriate right now for me to do that. But I feel like having everything happen right after I watched Make Happy kind of added to all the complicated feelings and reactions I had, because it is a very wonderful comedy special, that is so deep and so meaningful that it really made me question a lot of things, including things that the shootings made me realize and feel and think about.
2. Christina Grimmie's shooting. Christina Grimmie was an amazing musician who posted videos of her singing and doing covers on Youtube where she gained a considerable amount of recognition for. Hearing this news was very personal, not just because I was a huge fan of Grimmie and felt her death was so senseless and unnecessary and even avoidable but also because of my connection to Youtube and the Youtube community and culture right now is so strong, it felt like a symbolic attack on something that I loved and just injected so much fear and sadness into the community. Not only did I have to grieve personally, I had to grieve with the community.
3. The Orlando shooting that happened just the day after the news of Christina's death. I was still very affected and raw from Grimmie's death and when I first heard about the news I threw my hands up in the air and was like, nope. I can't deal with this right now. At first I didn't not realize that it was a gay nightclub that was targeted and when I did read up about it and saw that, it broke my heart. Because not only did this attack happen to a group of people I again feel such a strong connection too, the LGBT+ community, the media and even politicians were reacting and framing it in a way that was far from the point, overlooked the whole idea that it was first and foremost, a hate crime. And that kind of erasure just made me not just sad, but so so mad.
4. Me grappling with the fact that I am so affected by all of these things, which happened all at the same time and sort of build on my feelings of each individual thing, and not understand why. Why am I so affected by this, why am I so sad, why am I crying so much? I fully realize that everyone is allowed to deal with things and grieve in your own way, but personally I feel like I'm perhaps being too sad and grieving too much without proper reason, or rather for reasons that are misguided. Also my whole 'wannabe American' complex which I was realizing and thinking about way before the shootings and just feeding off of those personal existential crises in a way that is just perpetuating this cycle of negative feelings. And also way to be a hypocrite and make something terrible that happened to other people somehow about me.
5. A lot of Youtubers and people I follow online have responded to the shootings and a lot of those responses are still trickling in, and how raw and full of hurt these reactions are. Tyler Oakley's video and Hannah Hart's videos are some that I want to focus on, especially since they come from an LGBT perspective. Also, there's not just sadness but also a lot of anger. An agreement that we should all be fed up with this. Mass shootings are not new to the US. I only realized this recently but they stretch back to the 1990s with the Columbine shooting. This has gone on far too long and the only reason that it is still going on is that we are allowing it to happen. And I am glad that people with a following like Tyler Oakley, Hannah Hart, and so many other creators are using their platform to not just spread awareness but to take concrete action. So glad.
6. I'm not sure if this is something I can coherently write about because it is abstract and has to do with the relationship between happiness and sadness and how those things are not mutually exclusive. Like even as these shooting are very recent, another thing that was going on in the world was E3, the gaming convention and although I did not feel the need to follow the updates of the convention closely, I did catch myself up on it and get excited about everything. And then just a few minutes later I see an update about the Orlando shooting investigation. And also me getting very excited about adorably designed pocket tees, which I figure is partly a coping mechanism. The dissonance was there and I was very aware about it and just didn't know how to feel or what to do about it.
Yeah. Honestly my mental health has taken a bit of a dip since all of this has happened, but I am very proud of myself for being able to not let the feelings consume me too much to the point that I don't take care of myself. I put myself as a priority and though everything still feels very painful and raw, I feel like I am working through it and not avoiding it, which is progress, I know it is. I certainly doesn't feel that way, but I know it is.
Thanks for reading. Hopefully by tomorrow, I'll get these thoughts out soon.
--Karin Novelia, working through some things
Stubborn
You know what? I've made a decision. Surprising, I know.
The crux of the matter right now -- the matter being my existential crisis -- is that I feel very unsettled about where my life is heading. I am far too self-aware to delude myself into thinking that I have to be here. In college. Following the 'normal' path to success. I rebel against my current situation, but that's only self-destructive, to lay waste to the very ground you have no choice but to stand on. If I truly had the freedom to chose, I would not be here. I would build myself a sanctuary that truly allows me to explore my curious pursuits.
I do not have that freedom. I realize now that, despite what I've been told, I never did. A person will always be limited by their past. Free will is an illusion.
With that in mind, perhaps the best thing for me is to give in. Give in to my lack of choice and make the best of what is given to me. But, and this is me being tremendously stubborn, I will give in yet at the same time I will not give up. I will do everything that I've been told, 'to get good grades' and 'to get a college degree' and I will prove that I can do it. But I will also go above and beyond what is expected with me. I will study and do well, but at the same time I will hustle on the side, do the things that truly make me feel alive. It will take a lot more effort, and although it might be easier to just forego one for the sake of the other, I will not compromise my dreams.
I will prove them wrong, the people who said that there's no way I can do both, that I can only be one thing or another.
I will stubbornly believe, until my dying day, that I can be everything I want to be.
--Karin Novelia, turning that anger into determination.
Empty
I spend a lot of time, trying to fill myself up with things I think will make me feel whole. The problem is, in my search of identity and belonging, I'm starting to feel like I am limiting myself. It is what I want, yet at the same time, I rebel against the idea. I don't want to be limited.
I'm starting to believe that my search for stability and identity is futile. I've lived in the chaos far too long to be comfortable with anything else. And in a way, I'm grateful. My live is messy, sure, and makes no sense. But it's eye-opening in it's uncertainty, and made me think about a lot of things I probably never would've considered if my life was a bit more... 'normal'.
When I see myself living the life I dream of, I see myself wandering and flitting from one place to another, opening myself up to the world and what it has to offer as I explore and deepen my understanding of it. But in order to do that, I need to be empty. I need to be neutral, an empty vessel, people can pour a piece of themselves into. I need to be an nonthreatening outsider who simply wants to observe and passively experience the lives of others, listen to their stories, be a part of their world without affecting it.
I want to be everything and nothing at once.
Which makes sense, considering how empty I've become.
Here's to trying to fill myself up.
--Karin Novelia, idk.