There’s something about long and open roads that make you feel like you are an actress in a movie. Especially during the scenes where they pan the camera and do a close up on the actresses face who seemed to be in a dazed state of mind, daydreaming about their life and what’s it has come to.
Ever since moving to Wylie, I find myself taking on the stance of an actresses as I endeavor upon the long and open roads, with vast spaces of land that seem to never end. In my new home I find that I am really embodying an isolationist state of mind, where I absorb the comfort provided when no one is around to me. I go on those long walks, just like the actress, with these big and bulky headphones covering my ears and blocking my last connection to the rest of the world. It’s a very peaceful feeling when you have no expectations to fulfill, no people to please or put an act up for, where your only goal in mind is to find your way back home. Sometimes as I am lost in my own headspace: I forget my way back home. In the same sense, I forget where I am, what I was doing, how I got here, why I feel the emotions I’m currently feeling . . . Cationic. But other times I find that I have these sudden bursts of sadness, and anger. As if I’m fed up with the world, because I’ve been done wrong far too many times to count and far too many times that I am willing to put up with anymore. So I say to myself “I wish I could disappear like the breeze,” but in a manner where I’d still be acknowledge as a single presence without a body on Earth. And then I am overcome with loneliness, because I then realize that I’ve only been conversing with my own conscience the entire walk back. I think long and winding roads have that effect on a lot of people: forcing them to speak to the one person they refuse to speak to, because they’ve lost trust in them. Themselves that is.
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As a self-proclaimed introvert, I didn’t expect quarantine to impact me as much as it truly did.
At SMU, one of my biggest regrets was locking myself in my dorm - literally every single day - and refusing to talk to anyone until all my work was complete. And even on the days where I would give myself a “break,” I would still refrain from leaving the comfort of my dorm room out of sheer laziness, and the anxiety of having to talk to people in the hallway. I practically avoided every chance I got to live a normal life, because I was so afraid of dressing up and having to stage a front so that I could manage having a regular conversation with my friends. That was until the last week before school let out for spring break, and the potential end of our entire schooling year due to COVID-19. That week, alone, managed to erase a whole years worth of discomfort, because I finally learned to live a little. To have a life. And then I suddenly didn’t hate where I was. I didn’t harbor any hostile feelings for being in a university where I didn’t feel comfortable. I gave it a try, and managed to enjoy, in fact LOVE, where I was. And then all of it disappeared in an instant, once learning the University would be closing, as would the entire state due to the spread of COVID-19. My reaction? I wasn’t scared, in fact I was happy to learn that I would need to try anymore to go out of my comfort zone. And then I actually quarantined, which made me realize that feelings of “comfort” didn’t mean I was happy in the situation I was in. I was actually miserable, and reading the news, looking through social media . . . I learned many others were too. COVID-19 was the double-agent for those who suffered with mental health: masking itself as a sign of comfort, whilst really tearing at the already broken pieces that infested our minds. I remember, being younger, the only thing that was on my mind was what time dinner was going to be.
Coming from families well-versed in the art of cooking, I always had this little light-bulb in my small stomach that would light up whenever it was time to eat. At the time, my innocent mind had not yet been corrupted by the images of tiny stomachs on social media, or the obsession with models and their slim waists, for the only thing that I truly cared about was that, by the end of the night, my stomach felt full, felt whole. But of course puberty changed all that, though I found myself "glowing-up" rather than keeping the same chubbiness that I had, and my unnerved desire for good food. I became the very definition of obsessed entering middle-school, because I had started developing this construct in my mind, this vision, of someone that I needed to look at without regards as to whether or not I could actually become that person. Well, no through healthy means anyways, but I always told myself that I would have to go through the hardest in order to amount to the top. On top of that, I struggled with my own confidence in my schooling environment where the popular were defined with expressive personalities, and obviously likable traits, but also by slim composition and pretty faces. I regret to say that I also fell victim to the stereotype, viewing people only for their bodies and refusing to acknowledge the beauty on the inside that vibrated and counted for far greater than any exterior ever could. . . I wanted to know one thing, and one thing only: How can I be like them? Eighteen years-old, now, I've gone through so much and have come a long LONG way with growing into my body. I mean, even now, I am not entirely happy with the way my own body looks, because every time I look in the mirror I still see the rolls, I see the little belly peaking out, I see the stretch marks. But this time is different. Because this time I don't hate myself for them. I've learned to acknowledge that these marks that show on my body, everything that juts out isn't something to be ashamed of. It's just a process of growing, a normal, and healthy process of growing that isn't predefined by these standards we've created for ourselves, or these BMI ranges we are compelled to stay within. It's just you, it's just who you are and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that until you find a reason for there something to be wrong. I don't know why society, or maybe "some people" within society have created sets of classifications that a person MUST, just HAS TO fall within. Why can't a girl be beautiful but have stretch marks, flab, and a belly? Likewise, why can't a girl be naturally thin, not necessarily have the biggest butt, nor the biggest boobs and be beautiful? I'm sorry, but I don't remember there being a rule book called " The steps to becoming beautiful," I mean who created this silly ideal? So it all comes back to balance, because being healthy is all about being balanced. But that doesn't mean you won't have your off days, your cheat days where you tip the scale another way, or your bloated days where everything feels distorted. Thats the process of growing, and you have to keep in mind that as much as you are changing: so is your body. With that being said, I think many people also struggle with managing what is temporary and what is permanent. For instance, my body structure - the way my body is built - so how broad my shoulders are, my arm span, my height: that's all permanent, things that I cannot change no matter how hard I try. But how I feel, the pain in my stomach, the fear from being around food. . . those are things that are only temporary. We struggle so much to change our physical appearance, and I'm referring to the permanent things like the way the body is structured, that we completely disregard something that could garner us the growth we need for the future, which is changing the temporary. I feel like it's time to start living my life off of the temporary, rather than obsessing over the permanent. *Disclaimer: My grammar here is REALLY bad, because I decided to write this as a "Journal Entry" on a 15 minute timer. *
So I called this post "Day One of Living" because I wanted to begin my blog from a place that feels like a good starting point. Yesterday I had finished my last exam of the semester, and even those this is only my first year of college, it still feels so surreal to say that it is over. As I think to my time as someone who has had a rather poor school rep, rehashing back to my high school years, I truly am beginning to see how much I have grown from my past. I think that many times, speaking from my own experience, when we look to the past, we think of it as something we need to forget. We think of it as a time that was traumatizing, or shameful to look at because there were so many bad memories or moments that we would rather forget than to hold on to. I know this, because I am that person who wants to leave what's happened to the history books instead of something that could possibly be held against me, since if its in the past then there is no harm that could be further done to me. But I'm done running. I am absolutely done feeling sad, feeling like I need to run away from the past, disregard it, ignore it. . . I'm just done. To leave something behind doesn't mean that thing is ever gone, just like how pushing an emotion or feeling to the farthest point in your mind doesn't mean it won't ever resurface again. I think the reason why I did that was because I was trying to manipulate myself into believing that the past never existed in the first place, so every time an old memory would resurface, I could save myself from remembering the pain of it all. But the moment I decided to face who I was, not demean her, not try to forget her even, no, just to FACE her, then I began appreciating the growth that is life so much more. The best example I can give of this was how scared I was of telling people about my "mental breaks" in the past. There were times when I would act like a "cheerleader," or someone who cheers everyone on but acts completely different when they are alone. The bubbly person I had made me look like an actress in a show, waiting for her big break. So I would have such "breaks" in real life - collapsing on the floor, crying in a hall full of people because of panic attacks, my head ticking from side to side, my arms shaking - because I was so scared of revealing the way my mind was. When I was first diagnosed with depression in sophomore year, all these big breaks began to make sense to me, but I only hindered my growth by trying to escape from that person I was. So I became a "social activist" advocating for optimism, always encouraging people to look towards the bright side. What I realized though was that this was a very narrow-sided view of what life was: this idea that life should only be looking towards the bright side and never allowing yourself to get caught up in the moments of sadness or pessimism. For me to advocate this sort of mindset to people, personally, I don't think there is anything wrong with it. But, again, life isn't about the good only, for it is also about the bad moments: when life totally sucks, when it feels like a kick in the ass, when its just not doing you any justice. . . and you don't need to earn or garner the permission to express how you truly feel. I don't ask people permission to feel happy, so why should I ask permission to feel sad? My point is to own your own emotions in whatever shape, or form that they come, but don't feel like you need to restrict in order to serve society. Living at SMU showed me a lot more about myself than did staying at home during COVID-19 where we are confined to only those that are comfortable to us, such as our family members. I mean, I was truly an independent being at SMU: living my own life without parental supervision, getting my own food, having to manage my own "schedule". Everything is something you do "on your own," but that's how life is going to be eventually when I am living in my own house, and having to work a job to maintain my life style. People aren't going to be around you to give you instructions to follow, so you have to "make it up" along the way. But that's okay, because that is how you learn, and in the long-run you make for someone who embodies the very pennants of resilience and responsibility. You might not be perfect, but life is an imperfectness where we must make due with what we have just to make our way of living sustainable. With that being said, I would say that my life at SMU wasn't exactly sustainable because I mixed the two states of being content and comfortable. I was comfortable, but I was never content with staying by myself in the dorm, studying 24/7 without any interaction from living human-beings, or infesting my livelihood with my academic performance. As an introvert, I tricked myself into believing that how I felt was content, but I never was! Instead, I was comfortable being that way, but once you asked me the question "Are you happy?" my answer would be no - I am not in the slightest bit. I was miserable. I felt lonely. That was until my last week at SMU when I finally allowed myself to BREATHE and have a life. I enjoyed Holi with my friends, I studies at Fondren with even more friends until 1 A.M, we went out to go get ramen from this AMAZING place on campus. I had finally found my place of comfort - my balance - and I was enjoying every moment of it. Then COVID-19 hit and SMU was forced, like every other campus, to close its doors to students. Confinement at home made me realize how much I should have valued my life instead of prioritizing my academics, for life is not made to travel only one path - there are many multiple paths that factor into our "destination" and you are certainly going to have a to take a few detours here and there. Being at home, I reverted into the same person that I was at SMU, except this time I couldn't see any friends, or have the option to go out, so I reverted back to my "comfortable" shell. But I don't want to live my life this way anymore, falling back into my old "comfortable" habits. I want to find something new, and try to find an adaptable way of living that is sustainable through BALANCE. So that's why I am titling this blog "Day One of Living," because now that I am officially done with my freshman year, I can do just that: Live. |
Bella (Author)
Hey guys, my name is Bella, and I am currently 18 years-old, pursuing a degree in Marketing at Southern Methodist University. This blog is dedicated to all my successes and failures ( for the latter tends to out weight the former ) and to making the most out of every impending disaster hurtled my way. ArchivesCategories |