what's so fearsome about that?

21 years old. I don't know, but I'm figuring it out.

[guyuhthree]

“But what you love to see are faces that do work and feel thirst.”

I’ve been restless lately, and full of more questions than answers -- is what I’m doing right, and good, and enough? Where do I go from here? Not having answers can be paralyzing, and as days turn into weeks I become weighted down by anxiety, by the fear that I will stagnate and look back on all this time as lost, wasted. Which is of course ridiculous. I have so much. I have quiet moments in bed with black tea and candles, sometimes the warm, solid body of someone I love. I have subway books. I have a job I am good at (if occasionally bored at), where I was promoted. I have stovetop popcorn and parents who could not love me more and music that makes me feel simultaneously grounded and impossibly light. A new apartment to fill with plants and art and laughter. Most importantly I have the freedom and guts to ask the questions I need to ask, to seek out the answers and not shy away from things that are scary. Scary is good. Scary is what makes stories worth telling, people worth knowing, life a little fun, even. I want to do and be so many things -- I need to let this fact energize me and make me proud, not suction my feet to the ground. I want to be happy, and loved. I am, and I will be. 

[guyuhthree]

I used to write more on here, write about my thoughts and feelings and opinions, and now I don’t, and I’m not really sure why. I blogged fairly regularly for 4 years, starting the summer after high school graduation, when I found out that some of my friends were writing and sharing photos on here and thought hey, I could do that. And I did! I wrote about friends, and stories I thought were funny, and emotions, and I found people to follow and I reblogged funny/smart gifs and for 4 years this place was here for me. It helped me deal with loneliness, and stagnation, and it helped me find new music and form interesting opinions. It still is here for me, but I don’t use it. Maybe it’s because I’m writing other things now, stories and poems, but I wrote on here the entire time I was a Creative Writing student in college so that’s probably not it. Maybe I have less time. Maybe, maybe, as I’ve gotten older I’ve become less sure of my opinions, less convinced that my take on an experience or my particular brand of feeling is worth writing down. Maybe I’ve even become less brave, less able to deal with the fact that when you write about yourself you have to make statements, you have to go somewhere, you can’t just let your emotions turn into hazy smoke when you are bored of dealing with them. Is that sad, or is it maturity? Is it both? I don’t know (ha ha, that is the point), but I love going through my own archives and cringing a lot but also getting to know who I was at that specific point in time. What was I thinking about? What was stressing me out? What moments did I document? I can’t do that for 2015 -- I don’t have any archives, not really, of who I was in 2015. Which makes me a little bit sad because I know it was a good year, a big year. So maybe in 2016 I’ll blog more, or maybe I’ll get a journal and “blog” only for me. I’m not making any promises, but it’s been an emotionally heavy few days (I’m fine!) and my muscle memory brought me here so I thought I’d say hey.

[emerylord-deactivated20210730]

ok listen

being a “strong” woman or a “tough” woman doesn’t mean being willing and able to throw a punch or even having snappy comebacks. a leather jacket and a scowl don’t make you badass. (although, tbh, all these things make me feel like one.)

here are 10 things that make me think you’re strong:

- knowing who you are and not compromising it- but still evolving as a person

- showing up for the people you love even if it’s not easy

- putting time and work into something that matters to you

- chasing after what you want despite doubts & nerves & naysayers

- participating in the conversation- whether as an active listener or by using your voice

- getting better at something on purpose

- articulating your needs

- prioritizing your well-being

- not accepting bad treatment. it’s not the way you do this (a polite ‘I didn’t appreciate that” or a screaming F-you, quit-your-job scene) but that you do it on your terms.

- lifting others as you climb

[guyuhthree]

i love this.

[guyuhthree]

Hi blog,

It’s been a while, but I wanted you to know that I am legitimately frustrated because I am in love with a cute and fun and loving boy who is kinder to me than I deserve and it has been six whole months yet I do not have a single picture with him!! Ugh!

[guyuhthree]

In which I am embarrassing but not embarrassed.

I saw a woman in the elevator in my office building who was wearing red, white & blue - today! The last workday before the Fourth of July! Naturally, I light up and say “I like your outfit!” and I grin, because I, too, am wearing red, white & blue. She says, “Ha ha!” (She has the most ENORMOUS engagement ring, by the way. This is completely irrelevant but when will women learn that giant square diamonds surrounded by more diamonds is just tacky?) I write off her lack of enthusiasm as absorption in whatever she’s looking at on her phone, and we both step out of the elevator and into the sun, where I realize that her outfit is actually orange, white & black. Not red, white & blue. This is probably a sign that I should stop engaging exuberantly with strangers, because I make them uncomfortable and make myself look dumb, but fuck it -- life is short. Come at me, strangers of America! Let me grin at you and give you inaccurate compliments and ask about your cute dogs. Acknowledge and enjoy that we share space with like, a kajillion other human beings. Some are nice! All are dweebs, including me (maybe especially me, as evidenced by this anecdote). 

[tpmmedia]

We routinely receive crazy emails about America’s impending doom. Is it just us, or does this one sound like it was written by King of the Hill’s Dale Gribble?

[guyuhthree]

I live in the upstairs room of my new apartment, which means that it gets a lot hotter than the rest of the space -- that combined with the fact that I don’t have curtains to block out the sun means I am sitting in bed post-shower, sweat beading on my forehead, writing this. I don’t mind, though, because warmth means spring, which is my favorite season, and summer, which is my second-favorite season. You earn spring, in this city, and I am so, so excited. I want to do so much. I want to eat Popsicles and wear tank tops and walk on the bridge and listen to slow, lazy records. I want rooftop beer-drinking and Central Park-picnicking and so much reading, all the time.  It’s been hitting me recently, as I walk home from the subway or talk on the phone to my mother or finish some task at work, that this is my life. This is it! Not “it,” obviously; these moments aren’t going to comprise the rest of my life, but for now they are it. I’ll look back on certain afternoons and certain conversations and the way certain coincidences of work and weather and people and light made me feel and think, “that was 2015, and that was 22.” I could do that with any year and age, but it’s never been more my own before -- 2009 and 16, for example, belonged to me but also my parents and my school -- which should be terrifying but I feel calm. Calm because I know that “it” is pretty good, so far, and I also know that I have the strength and gumption to weed out the things that creep into a Tuesday, then maybe just weekdays, slowly my entire life, and make me want to give up (senses of dread, dissatisfaction, etc.) I know I am supported. 

And maybe I don’t have curtains and maybe I owe the library $32 and have two mugs to wash and maybe I haven’t cooked for myself in a few days, but no one really cares, and I’ll figure that shit out, and I’m still doing it. 

[guyuhthree]

I went to a bookstore the other day,

I forget what it was called but it was very small and near my work and sold “international books” and I had been meaning to go for a while. And guys, I know this sounds really twee and annoying, but I actually felt stress I didn’t know I had tumble off of my shoulders in the 15 minutes I spent there flipping through books about Paris and New York.

What is it about bookstores? Is it the warm lighting and wood paneling that’s typical of independent bookstores that has such a calming effect? Is it the fact that they surround you with things that take time -- each item up for sale represents hours spent on the subway, on your lunch break, in bed, consuming -- that make you feel like you can take time, you deserve to take time? Is it just that movies like You’ve Got Mail and internet subcultures like the one on Tumblr have fetishized bookstores to the point where they essentially have a placebo effect on susceptible girls who read a lot? 

I don’t know, but if you are like me (overly romantic, into books) and need some zen in your life, spend some time at a small bookstore. They smell good, too. 

[guyuhthree]

It’s Monday night and I’ve covered my face in Irish mud and here is what that looks like. Just a high-class biddie livin’ the dream over here. 

[guyuhthree]

Just had a check-in with myself like,

Am I at all sentimental re: moving out of my first NYC apartment? The answer is no, but at least I cared enough to make sure.

[guyuhthree]

On friendship

I called two friends yesterday, two friends with one phone call because they’re sisters and they were driving from North Carolina to D.C. together. They put me on speaker and for an hour and a half we talked about our jobs, our hopes, our weird ideas, boys, etc. etc. while the wind whipped past, rattling their Jeep. “It was like we were on a road trip with you, too, not just each other!” Emily said as we were about to end the conversation. And it was like that, and I missed them, and I miss so many of my friends because holy crap I think I have some completely magical friendships and I am so, so lucky. 

I’m lucky too in that some of these friends live here in New York and we can share jokes and bottles of wine more or less whenever we want. My friendships are old; I’ve known most of my closest friends since I was at least 14. There is a deep, mellow comfort to old friendships that I don’t think much else compares to. I don’t have siblings so I don’t know about that brand of closeness, but at any rate you don’t get to meet your siblings and have weird, possibly awkward first and second encounters and be maybe a little vulnerable -- “we’ve been talking before class starts and sitting together at lunch for a while now, so maybe she’ll want to come over after school one day? We could study for the algebra test?” And somehow, due to a combination of luck and technology and (probably) good, wise taste, those people I studied for algebra tests with and invited to my teenage birthday parties and cried over boys with have, for the most part, become the people I share my (slightly) more adult life with. People I trust and love and believe in. Who show up for me and see me better than I see myself, who tell me the things that remind them of me and my recognition elicits a shock of laughter.

We all forge relationships with people, and often those relationships feel sacred and magical, and I don’t want to imply that mine are better than anyone else’s because friendship isn’t about competition. Friendship is to remind you that competition doesn’t matter because look at all these people who have put up with you despite the fact that you’re often insufferable, people who probably don’t care if you aren’t the smartest or funniest or prettiest. They love you and like you, so god, shut the fuck up already. Or don’t, it’s fine. 

[guyuhthree]

I feel as if I'm on the cusp

of goodness today; good things are flirting with me, saying "here we almost are -- are you lucky enough? Patient enough?" I am close to leaving my apartment and moving to another, better one with actual friends, people who will want to throw parties and watch movies and even just say hello. There is a boy I like who likes me back, which is new and exciting in all the right ways. Spring is coming -- the sun was still up when I left work and the weather was calm, and Manhattan had never looked so beautiful. 

Sometimes I guess it takes feeling happy to realize, "Oh! I was unhappy, before!" Happiness as a state, not something I experience in fleeting moments, might become my new normal -- if I am lucky enough. Patient enough. 

[ournoddingterms]

I went back home to North Carolina last month, taking advantage of a three-day weekend and some rollover vacation days, with no plans but to chill. It was no one’s birthday, there is no obscure Hindu holiday in the middle of February – I just hadn’t been home since Thanksgiving, and I missed it....

[guyuhthree]

I've been writing here lately, with some friends

[guyuhthree]

Mine Own Phil Levine

Dorianne Laux

What he told me, I will tell you There was a war on It seemed we had lived through Too many to name, to number There was no arrogance about him No vanity, only the strong backs Of his words pressed against The tonnage of a page His suggestion to me was that hard work Was the order of each day When I asked again, he said it again, Pointing it out twice His Muse, if he had one, was a window Filled with a brick wall, the left hand corner Of his mind, a hand lined with grease And sweat: literal things Before I knew him, I was unknown I drank deeply from his knowledge   A cup he gave me again and again Filled with water, clear river water He was never old, and never grew older Though the days passed and the poems Marched forth and they were his words Only, no other words were needed He advised me to wait, to hold true To my vision, to speak in my own voice To say the thing straight out There was the whole day about him The greatest thing, he said, was presence To be yourself in your own time, to stand up That poetry was precision, raw precision Truth and compassion: genius I had hardly begun. I asked, How did you begin He said, I began in a tree, in Lucerne In a machine shop, in an open field Start anywhere He said If you don’t write, it won’t Get written. No tricks.  No magic About it.  He gave me his gold pen He said What’s mine is yours

[guyuhthree]

Emotionally I am like a peeled peach these days, tender and raw. Frazzled, constantly on edge, heart on my sleeve. My clothes hang a little looser -- I might be feeling myself away.

[oofpoetry]

When I am lonely for boys it’s their bodies I miss. I study their hands lifting the cigarettes in the darkness of the movie theaters, the slope of a shoulder, the angle of a hip. Looking at them sideways, I examine them in different lights. My love for them is visual: that is the part of them I would like to possess. Don’t move, I think. Stay like that, let me have that.

Margaret Atwood (via coffeetooth)

[guyuhthree]

You a lucky n**** if my mean ass like you.

Nicki Minaj speaks to me on a spiritual level with this lyric