chronicles of youth

"It’s like swimming against the current. It exhausts you. After a while, whoever you are, you just have to let go, and the river brings you home." - Joanne Harris

[writtenbyagirl]

Wow I love innocently clicking on an article and then realizing shortly thereafter that it was written by my boyfriend’s ex!

[writtenbyagirl]

Why why why do I feel like I look for reasons to resent my bf?

[writtenbyagirl]

Holy shit I think I just had an epiphany that a lot of my anxiety comes from missing my mom/home/security in general. I mean duh but like this morning my anxiety was through the roof and I couldn't figure out why....it's not like I was consciously thinking about my mom. I was thinking about having to finish my reading and not knowing why I was too anxious to do it. But yeah. I miss my mom. I think there's never a time when I'm not missing her. I'm talking about her like she's not alive and thriving, which she totally is. But I guess when I say I miss my mom I mean I miss being a kid and having my mom to myself all the time. Because I can go home and see my mom but I know in the back of my mind that I can't stay there forever. I'll always have to leave at some point. There's honestly so much grief within adulthood.

[writtenbyagirl]

I feel like I'm constantly defining myself by being too much or not enough of something in relation to others - like I'm too artsy/alt/on social media for my brother/his fiancé/their friends - but too straight/capitalist/heteronormative/basic for Amy and the people she hangs out with - too Asian when I'm in white or just non-Asian spaces - not Asian/Taiwanese enough when I'm with a bunch of asians/Taiwanese people - too woke for my family friend groups full of kids who went to UW or Georgetown or Carnegie Mellon and majored in finance or comp sci and went on to become bankers and doctors and engineers and who can't even use the right pronouns when talking about someone who recently transitioned, or still thinks it's ok/valid to ask "how gay" someone is - not woke enough to accidentally keep fucking up a trans acquaintance's pronouns - too Seattle for New York - too New York for Seattle - etc

[writtenbyagirl]

in an effort to understand myself more

good for my mental/physical/emotional/overall health: 

-eating until i feel full

-cooking yummy food at home

-waking up at 8 and going to bed around midnight

-relaxing my muscles every so often and taking deep, full breaths

-seeing/talking to a friend at least once a day

-having positive social interactions every day

-being conscious + thoughtful of how i spend my time on the internet (knowing when to put my phone down, knowing when to stop watching netflix, keeping track of how much time i’m spending online)

-having lots of natural light in my apartment

-having a structured routine throughout the day

-understanding what activities i enjoy + what i don’t 

-going to therapy

-connecting with my family

-drinking lots of water

-being surrounded by positive people who respect me and listen to me

-wearing clothes i feel confident and beautiful in 

-understanding that i’m not responsible for all the world’s problems/other people’s problems/it’s impossible and fruitless to try to anticipate all the bad thing that could happen

-finishing my readings in advance, and doing them in the morning before i get burned out from the day

-being clean and having a clean room/apartment

bad for my mental/physical/emotional/overall health:

-skipping meals

-obsessing over other people’s actions (i.e. a friend not texting me back)

-staying at home doing nothing for the majority of the day

-obsessing over how i come off to others 

-not talking to anyone all day/living alone

-the instability/stress-as-romanticized aspect of school...why is not getting enough sleep or not eating so normalized?

-getting trapped in the rabbit hole of social media

things/places/experiences i enjoy:

-iced lattes on hot days

-participating in class

-abraço 

-going for walks around the east village/LES

-washington square park at dusk

-yoga vida

-spending time with my parents

-having a glass of rosé

-my white button down shirt

-the Cut’s ‘ask polly’ column

-talking to my professors to engage more with the material

-NPR’s tiny desk series

-waking up early

things/places/experiences i do not enjoy:

-think coffee on mercer street

-classes that go from 6-9 pm

-poke bowls

-huge crowds (in subway stations, in trader joes and the strand, etc)

-the act of traveling from one place to another - i.e. going to the airport, flying on a plane

-union square/honestly greenwich village kinda?

-NYU computer labs

-

[writtenbyagirl]

when he looks at me he really looks at me

[writtenbyagirl]

maybe i am someone

who gets emotionally attached after sex...but i don’t think it’s the actual sex that does it...it’s more those brief, soft moments in the middle of the night when you’re lying centimeters away from another person, like how they look at you almost in wonder as they brush strands of your hair back from your forehead, or how they lightly, intently run their hand up and down the length of your leg, or the way you can’t stop stroking the side of their face with your palm, like the texture of it is addicting somehow

when having casual sex without being in a relationship, without a commitment to one another, what are those moments?

where is the line between a physical connection and an emotional connection?

[writtenbyagirl]

I Should Never Have Googled You

I should have never Googled you

because then I wouldn’t have fallen in love

with the online you before the real you,

with YouTube videos of you from four years ago

reading poetry at your pretentious liberal arts college,

with the tweets that you favorite,

with the Change.org petitions you share on Facebook.

I should have never Googled you

because then I would never have found out

that you post rap music on Soundcloud and still manage to seem cool, 

that your grandmother wrote a Holocaust memoir,

that you got shot in the eye with a paintball when you were twelve

so I wouldn’t have had to act surprised

when light reflected off your left pupil

like it was a shard of glass 

as we walked down 7th street on our first date.

I should have never Googled you

because then I wouldn’t already know

that your voice sounds like a newspaper being opened,

that you and your brother held each other on election night,

that you wish to stare into the pulses of a paper cut.

I should have never Googled you

because then I wouldn’t feel like I know the edges of you

because then when you said you had to stop seeing me

after only four dates and sex without staying the night twice

I wouldn’t have to write a poem called “I should have never Googled you”

in order to get over you.

[writtenbyagirl]

Ok ok so ur just gonna fuck me twice and then not text me back ok

[writtenbyagirl]

Like I shouldn't be questioning myself because of a guy right? I shouldn't doubt myself or even stress about this. The right person wouldn't make me worried all the time, right? But then how do I still like him??? I still think he's a good person...I'm still attracted to him......sigh

[writtenbyagirl]

Do we just have different needs? Like clearly he is ok not communicating much between dates but I am not. I need more than just like...3 texts a week.

[writtenbyagirl]

I think if the guy I fucked never spoke to me again I'd be okay with it. But I also wouldn't mind continuing to see him. I'm pretty sure I like him. Agh idk this is so confusing I just want to know what he's thinking and feeling Like idk if he doesn't want anything serious then I don't think I can continue dating him for long Because I need more stability than this I guess we shall see

[writtenbyagirl]

this is my first time casually dating someone and i’m so....CONFUSED....and distracted all the time thinking about him.....like I literally can’t focus at work bc all I do is think about him....but like legitimately I have no idea how to act or what to expect or what even is the “right” way to date.... like are we supposed to be texting more???/seeing each other more??? when is it too early to ask where things are going? we’ve only been on four dates + had sex the last two times but it feels like longer bc we’ve been talking since like April.....IDK i think i’m really into him but the main thing that bothers me is that he takes so long to text me back, like sometimes more than a day - not when we’re making plans/about to meet up, but when we’re just having a random conversation. but like can i even bring that up or is it way too early?? idk i’m just so lost lmao

[writtenbyagirl]

yo dude what the fuck

why haven’t you texted me yet

at the end of our date you gave me a long kiss

that i kept replaying in my head for the entire next day at work

so i assumed you were into me

but friday came and went

without any word from you

the weather today was a lot less humid

than when we saw each other last

we could’ve hung out but we didn’t

like do you want to date me or not?

if you do you’re gonna need to take less than 24 hours to respond to my texts

like

that’s not even asking for much

idk man

i don’t like having to second guess whether or not you like me

and i mean it’s true that you don’t owe me anything

and i don’t owe you anything

we’ve only been on one date

but also like we’ve been talking for over two months

which is a significant amount of time idk

i need more than this

[writtenbyagirl]

a boy kissed me last night outside of my apartment 

the air was thick & muggy

[writtenbyagirl]

I just like to suffer I guess

[writtenbyagirl]

I am so angryyyyy I’m supposed to go on a date with this guy tonight but he still hasn’t responded about what time we’re meeting like we’ve been talking for over two months now and I don’t want to find out that I’ve just been wasting my time like if you don’t want to meet up with me just tell me!!!!!!!!!! UGH like maybe I should've moved on a while ago????