I think it's a pretty safe bet that the past twelve months have held more stress for me than the preceding 18 and a half years combined. I mean, most of the posts on this blog were born out of some stressful situation or another. And while I'm a generally happy person, and don't feel that stress or anxiety is currently impacting my life in a big, significant way, it is something that is incorporated into my day-to-day thinking.
I could probably write thousands of words about the things that I think are behind my stress. I mean, really behind it. But once I've battled my way through a particularly rough patch, like just now, the only thing I want to do is sleep. So I'm going to talk a bit about how I cope with stress day-to-day, and then I'm gonna sleep. Because sleep fights stress. I think?
I'm not quite sure how I discovered it, but my go-to response when I notice I'm stressed is to make lists. Actually, I think this skill just sorta spontaneously evolved in symbiosis with my increasing stress levels. Which is pretty cool. I mean, websites and counsellors and those little booklets they give you at frosh orientation are all fine and good (and can be really really helpful) but it's great to know that my mind came up with a way to help itself.
Anyways, so yes. Lists. I think this started out as a mental checklist to help me fall asleep - a way of addressing all the stressful things in my life at the moment so that my brain might stop obsessing over them for five minutes and let me drift off.
But as stress became a more round-the-clock sorta thing, these lists turned into actual to-do lists. Or more like, to-worry-about lists. Some of the items are things I can do immediately, or tomorrow, and some of them I won't be able to do anything about for a few weeks - or forever. But either way, having them listed out is like installing a filing cabinet in my brain. Instead of a messy jumble of ideas and memories and reminders and worries, each of my stressors has its own place. This makes it easy to deal with each of them individually - divide and conquer!
Plus, the methodical process of finding pen, paper and a flat surface, and writing out entry after entry, is pretty soothing, and can really help me come down from the edge of a panic attack.
During the semester my desk is littered with sticky notes (that have usually lost their stick) telling me the things I should be thinking about. Each on their own line - each in their own time.
Ok that was corny as hell. I should probably apologize. And also go to bed.
But seriously. I'm not trying to suggest a way for others to deal with their stress here - although I wish I knew enough to do that, cause stress freaking sucks. I just wanted to take a sec to appreciate that I have a strategy that generally works kinda great. I think I'm pretty lucky.
Goodnight, bloglings
Monday 26 August 2013
Sunday 18 August 2013
Week 33: Boxes and Updates
Because I'm making a concentrated effort to get this blog back on schedule, I have neither the time nor the energy for anything profound tonight. Although, if you think hard enough about anything, there is probably something profound to be gleaned from it.
I'll leave that bit up to you.
In the last few hours, my childhood bedroom - and much of the surrounding house - has devolved into a swirling vortex of cardboard boxes and chaos. I guess I was not as prepared for the move back to school as I thought I was. But regardless of how much of a disaster it is .... tomorrow, we ride at dawn!
We being myself, my dad, and a minivan packed to the gills.
Luckily, this is only phase one. The plan this week is to move and assemble most of my furniture, and paint one of my new white walls a nice tumblr blue. Yes, I'm going to have a tumblr-esque accent wall in my bedroom. What? You've never abused the virtually-unlimited painting privileges bestowed by a well-meaning but oblivious landlord?
After a few days in my new house, I'll begrudgingly return to Privet Drive to finish up a few last shifts at work and pack up the rest of my things. And then, the countdown starts. As of Labour Day, I'll be living on my own - well not quite, but at least I'll be living with housemates who have seen every episode of Friends and use Harry Potter references in their everyday vocabulary.
Although this summer has been worlds away from last summer, in terms of, well, everything, I can't help but feel some familiar tugs at my heart while packing up.
The first time around, packing meant the end of an era, and knowing that nothing would be the same. It wasn't so much the fear of missing people and places as it was the fear of missing a time - a childhood summer is something that can never really be revisited.
This past week, the months of anticipation about getting back to Hogwarts, back to "my world", have started to give way to the suggestion of missing people and places here at home. Not a lot, definitely not a lot. A select few. (If I learned anything this year, it was that close friends are a quality-over-quantity sort of commodity).
And maybe it's living in a real house, paying rent and having a drivers licence, but I can't help but feel as though there is less and less tying me here. Honestly, I'm not sure I'll be spending another summer here. And that is both thrilling beyond belief and heart-wrenching to think about. Because while I have (almost totally) gotten over the romanticized teenage summer story, there are those few people, those places, that I just can't shake.
So, in summary: packing, moving, anticipating new and exciting things, and anticipating sad and heart-breaking things, but mostly being super freaking grateful that I have hella people to love (and people who love me) in a lot of places.
Goodnight, bloglings
I'll leave that bit up to you.
In the last few hours, my childhood bedroom - and much of the surrounding house - has devolved into a swirling vortex of cardboard boxes and chaos. I guess I was not as prepared for the move back to school as I thought I was. But regardless of how much of a disaster it is .... tomorrow, we ride at dawn!
We being myself, my dad, and a minivan packed to the gills.
Luckily, this is only phase one. The plan this week is to move and assemble most of my furniture, and paint one of my new white walls a nice tumblr blue. Yes, I'm going to have a tumblr-esque accent wall in my bedroom. What? You've never abused the virtually-unlimited painting privileges bestowed by a well-meaning but oblivious landlord?
After a few days in my new house, I'll begrudgingly return to Privet Drive to finish up a few last shifts at work and pack up the rest of my things. And then, the countdown starts. As of Labour Day, I'll be living on my own - well not quite, but at least I'll be living with housemates who have seen every episode of Friends and use Harry Potter references in their everyday vocabulary.
Although this summer has been worlds away from last summer, in terms of, well, everything, I can't help but feel some familiar tugs at my heart while packing up.
The first time around, packing meant the end of an era, and knowing that nothing would be the same. It wasn't so much the fear of missing people and places as it was the fear of missing a time - a childhood summer is something that can never really be revisited.
This past week, the months of anticipation about getting back to Hogwarts, back to "my world", have started to give way to the suggestion of missing people and places here at home. Not a lot, definitely not a lot. A select few. (If I learned anything this year, it was that close friends are a quality-over-quantity sort of commodity).
And maybe it's living in a real house, paying rent and having a drivers licence, but I can't help but feel as though there is less and less tying me here. Honestly, I'm not sure I'll be spending another summer here. And that is both thrilling beyond belief and heart-wrenching to think about. Because while I have (almost totally) gotten over the romanticized teenage summer story, there are those few people, those places, that I just can't shake.
So, in summary: packing, moving, anticipating new and exciting things, and anticipating sad and heart-breaking things, but mostly being super freaking grateful that I have hella people to love (and people who love me) in a lot of places.
Goodnight, bloglings
Friday 16 August 2013
Week 32: Deep Breaths
Lately I've been catching myself taking a lot of deep breaths. It's not like I'm short of breath - I can breathe just fine. My lungs aren't slacking off and the air around here is as clean as can be.
It happens when there's too much going on. And it happens when the lack of everything becomes too much to bear.
It happens when I miss the past so much that I'll do anything to keep my present from moving forward. It happens when my heart is already beating over-time, as if the space between now and the future is a race.
It happens when I wish the room was filled with other breaths, fast and slow and feeling. It happens when I wish that I could blow a giant bubble and just float away inside, alone.
It happens when the moment is nothing else but the crowd, the screams, the lyrics. It happens when the real world turns on the house lights and shows us all ourselves.
It happens when I stop myself from lashing out, shouting back. It happens after, when my throat is searing because those words burn me as much as they burn you.
It happens when this little place makes me itch to break down the walls. It happens when the cool air outside chills my chest right through.
It happens a lot, lately. In and out and in and out. Filling up my lungs with the air that once filled a million other pairs. The air that once started speeches and sustained kisses and in one sharp intake was the last.
In
and
out
and
in
and
out.
It happens a lot, but at least
it happens.
It happens when there's too much going on. And it happens when the lack of everything becomes too much to bear.
It happens when I miss the past so much that I'll do anything to keep my present from moving forward. It happens when my heart is already beating over-time, as if the space between now and the future is a race.
It happens when I wish the room was filled with other breaths, fast and slow and feeling. It happens when I wish that I could blow a giant bubble and just float away inside, alone.
It happens when the moment is nothing else but the crowd, the screams, the lyrics. It happens when the real world turns on the house lights and shows us all ourselves.
It happens when I stop myself from lashing out, shouting back. It happens after, when my throat is searing because those words burn me as much as they burn you.
It happens when this little place makes me itch to break down the walls. It happens when the cool air outside chills my chest right through.
It happens a lot, lately. In and out and in and out. Filling up my lungs with the air that once filled a million other pairs. The air that once started speeches and sustained kisses and in one sharp intake was the last.
In
and
out
and
in
and
out.
It happens a lot, but at least
it happens.
Saturday 10 August 2013
Week 31: On Fangirls and Trust
If we are fans/subscribers of similar people on YouTube - and let's face it, if you're here there's a good chance we are friends as a a direct result of following the same people - then you will probably know that in the past few weeks, there has been a lot of STUFF happening in this community. Good stuff and bad stuff, and ... other stuff.
So we all know that the relationship between content creator and content consumer on YT is completely unique. Some creators can rightly be called (internet) celebrities, while others, making equally good content, are nowhere near that popular. But in either case, we don't see them the same way we movie stars or Top 40 musicians. The line between fan and creator is very blurred - we see our favourite YouTubers as real people, not just beautiful faces or infectious voices or famous names.
Why? Not because we are delusional fans, convinced that we "know" them - we see them as real people because they share with us the things that make them real people. Their ups and downs, their insecurities and their favourite colour and the last book they read and the cute thing their puppy did and they way their voice cracks after a weekend of partying.
Whether they make vlogs or music or whatever else, their art is inextricably linked to their everyday life. And when someone's videos resonate with you, when you allow them to have meaning for you, you become, to some degree emotionally invested in their art - and by extension, their life. And creators who interact with their audience, who value the contributions of their audience towards the conversation that is their videos, become invested in their viewers as well.
This connection, this investment, is what the YouTube community was built upon. It's the reason that we all feel that sense of belonging and acceptance when we're among other video creators and viewers. It's the reason that amazing things like Project for Awesome and VidCon happen. It's the reason we have friends around the world. It is, overall, a Good Thing.
But like all good and precious things, this connection can, of course, be broken. If a YouTube creator does something to lose the trust and the emotional investment of their audience, then they lose their audience.
(As an aside: If a pop star were to do something similar, they would probably not lose their entire audience. Why? Because as an audience, we don't see their art intertwined with their life. We don't see what makes them real, relatable people. And so we trust them less - and thus, there is less to be broken.)
And layered on top of the fan/creator dynamic is the issue of gender. A lot of well-know YouTubers have largely female audiences, who are belittled as "fangirls" - with the implication that their dedication or trust in a YouTuber is superficial or silly. It's ingrained in our society that women's emotions are not as valid as men's; that they are over-the-top, irrational, and motivated by hormones and mood swings rather than reason and value. And nowhere is this more apparent than in the way society treats teenage girls.
The world is sort of an awful place to be a teenage girl; they are programmed to hate their bodies and each other, their emotions are mocked, their opinions invalidated, and you can forget about independent decision-making. Consequently, it's really difficult for girls to form healthy connections with, well, anyone.
And then along comes YouTube. A platform for interacting that, while it definitely has issues, is somewhat less antagonistic towards girls than the IRL world. The YT world (at least, the one I'm in) is largely comprised of younger people, and so maintains slightly lower levels of misogyny than the real world, which is dominated by our parents' generation. The anonymity of YouTube means that viewers who are girls can be enthusiastic, emotional, opinionated and in general act like real humans, without being attacked and shot down the way they are IRL.
(I'm not saying YouTube is some wonderful equality paradise - there are A Whole Lot of problems faced by anyone who is not male in the community. But as a teenage girl and also a YT viewer, it is far easier to care about stuff here than to care about stuff IRL.)
And so, teenage girls, who find it so difficult to connect with people in their everyday lives, find themselves forming connections on YouTube. Whether it's someone they find charming and attractive or someone whose art they admire and aspire to (or more likely both), they become emotionally invested, just like any other viewer, in both the content and the creator.
And that emotional investment should not be mocked or put down or deemed dangerous - it's really actually sort of beautiful. Connections with people are how we grow and mature and learn more about ourselves. They are, as stated above, Good Things.
When a creator breaks the trust of their audience, it's really awful. When that audience is largely comprised of teenage girls, as many popular YouTubers' audiences are - it's really really awful. Because from about the age of 13, girls are constantly having their trust broken. Their trust that their bodies can look like the pictures in magazines. Their trust that they can actually have any job they want. Their trust that their voices will be listened to just as much as the voices of their male peers. Their trust that the world sees them as people.
All of these things, teenage girls learn, are not the case.
But because they are wonderful and strong and really, really brave, teenage girls persist in caring about things. They persist in shouting and having their voice heard. They persist in forming connections, even though they know that trust is so easily broken.
People argue that events like this are grim warnings. That when a "fangirl" puts her trust into a musician - whose music is the only thing that lets her fall asleep at night, who tells her she's awesome and thanks her for supporting his career - and he turns out to be a complete asshole, that it's preparation for the real world. For all the other people who will break her heart. They argue that this will teach girls not to "obsess" over someone they don't actually know.
The thing is, it's not a warning. As anyone who has spent 5 minutes as a teenage girl can tell you, it's just a confirmation of what they already knew. Just the very latest in a string of people who have broken their trust.
And we have to hope, we have to hope with all our might, that once this is over, they will still have trust to give.
Thanks for trusting me, bloglings
So we all know that the relationship between content creator and content consumer on YT is completely unique. Some creators can rightly be called (internet) celebrities, while others, making equally good content, are nowhere near that popular. But in either case, we don't see them the same way we movie stars or Top 40 musicians. The line between fan and creator is very blurred - we see our favourite YouTubers as real people, not just beautiful faces or infectious voices or famous names.
Why? Not because we are delusional fans, convinced that we "know" them - we see them as real people because they share with us the things that make them real people. Their ups and downs, their insecurities and their favourite colour and the last book they read and the cute thing their puppy did and they way their voice cracks after a weekend of partying.
Whether they make vlogs or music or whatever else, their art is inextricably linked to their everyday life. And when someone's videos resonate with you, when you allow them to have meaning for you, you become, to some degree emotionally invested in their art - and by extension, their life. And creators who interact with their audience, who value the contributions of their audience towards the conversation that is their videos, become invested in their viewers as well.
This connection, this investment, is what the YouTube community was built upon. It's the reason that we all feel that sense of belonging and acceptance when we're among other video creators and viewers. It's the reason that amazing things like Project for Awesome and VidCon happen. It's the reason we have friends around the world. It is, overall, a Good Thing.
But like all good and precious things, this connection can, of course, be broken. If a YouTube creator does something to lose the trust and the emotional investment of their audience, then they lose their audience.
(As an aside: If a pop star were to do something similar, they would probably not lose their entire audience. Why? Because as an audience, we don't see their art intertwined with their life. We don't see what makes them real, relatable people. And so we trust them less - and thus, there is less to be broken.)
And layered on top of the fan/creator dynamic is the issue of gender. A lot of well-know YouTubers have largely female audiences, who are belittled as "fangirls" - with the implication that their dedication or trust in a YouTuber is superficial or silly. It's ingrained in our society that women's emotions are not as valid as men's; that they are over-the-top, irrational, and motivated by hormones and mood swings rather than reason and value. And nowhere is this more apparent than in the way society treats teenage girls.
The world is sort of an awful place to be a teenage girl; they are programmed to hate their bodies and each other, their emotions are mocked, their opinions invalidated, and you can forget about independent decision-making. Consequently, it's really difficult for girls to form healthy connections with, well, anyone.
And then along comes YouTube. A platform for interacting that, while it definitely has issues, is somewhat less antagonistic towards girls than the IRL world. The YT world (at least, the one I'm in) is largely comprised of younger people, and so maintains slightly lower levels of misogyny than the real world, which is dominated by our parents' generation. The anonymity of YouTube means that viewers who are girls can be enthusiastic, emotional, opinionated and in general act like real humans, without being attacked and shot down the way they are IRL.
(I'm not saying YouTube is some wonderful equality paradise - there are A Whole Lot of problems faced by anyone who is not male in the community. But as a teenage girl and also a YT viewer, it is far easier to care about stuff here than to care about stuff IRL.)
And so, teenage girls, who find it so difficult to connect with people in their everyday lives, find themselves forming connections on YouTube. Whether it's someone they find charming and attractive or someone whose art they admire and aspire to (or more likely both), they become emotionally invested, just like any other viewer, in both the content and the creator.
And that emotional investment should not be mocked or put down or deemed dangerous - it's really actually sort of beautiful. Connections with people are how we grow and mature and learn more about ourselves. They are, as stated above, Good Things.
When a creator breaks the trust of their audience, it's really awful. When that audience is largely comprised of teenage girls, as many popular YouTubers' audiences are - it's really really awful. Because from about the age of 13, girls are constantly having their trust broken. Their trust that their bodies can look like the pictures in magazines. Their trust that they can actually have any job they want. Their trust that their voices will be listened to just as much as the voices of their male peers. Their trust that the world sees them as people.
All of these things, teenage girls learn, are not the case.
But because they are wonderful and strong and really, really brave, teenage girls persist in caring about things. They persist in shouting and having their voice heard. They persist in forming connections, even though they know that trust is so easily broken.
People argue that events like this are grim warnings. That when a "fangirl" puts her trust into a musician - whose music is the only thing that lets her fall asleep at night, who tells her she's awesome and thanks her for supporting his career - and he turns out to be a complete asshole, that it's preparation for the real world. For all the other people who will break her heart. They argue that this will teach girls not to "obsess" over someone they don't actually know.
The thing is, it's not a warning. As anyone who has spent 5 minutes as a teenage girl can tell you, it's just a confirmation of what they already knew. Just the very latest in a string of people who have broken their trust.
And we have to hope, we have to hope with all our might, that once this is over, they will still have trust to give.
Thanks for trusting me, bloglings
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