How things change—or stay the same
I can’t believe it’s been a year since I started this blog. Wow. A year later I am still in the same spot on my couch writing out my thoughts and feelings in my online invasive journal. And I still love it. I tend to look back at where I was one year ago and where I am today very often. I can never really seem to spot the differences aside from an alternate hair part or a new shirt. Not only physically, but mentally, I don’t know if the way I think is still the same or the way I feel about certain things. Maybe I am too conscious of myself in every moment to observe a span of hypothetical “growth”.
But I feel like we are always jumping to catch a “WOAH!” moment of change in our lives when we compare it to what it was a year ago: “Look at how different I looked last year versus now”, or “Isn’t it crazy to think about how our lives have changed since last year?”. I do it allll the time. It’s as if I’m eager to prove a point to someone that my life is on a constant upward trajectory. I don’t think it’s out of a place of insecurity but I do admit there is a certain invisible pressure to constantly be a better version of yourself. Even if it’s only in the way your hair has changed.
Is it vain? Or is it healthy to search for that success, no matter how little, after the span of 365 days? Sometimes it’s perforative and sometimes it’s only in private where we do it to boost our ego. I suppose the search for minute to large-scale progression is “vain” when it only consists of swiping between photos of yourself from then to now. That’s what I’m guilty of, I guess I never compare myself from before versus now when it comes to my mentality or internal growth. Aside from my past diary entries about boys that I can now laugh at, what has changed about me?
I guess I listen to artists I haven’t before, I got a haircut, I made new friends and kept old ones, I finally bought some new paint, I switched schools, I learned that memoirs are my favorite genre of books, I started laying on the grass instead of putting a picnic blanket on top of it first, the list goes on. I wonder if these things count or if they are just superficial observations. I haven’t come across some major revelation about myself this past year but these little ones matter too. They are the accumulation of things that make me the person I am at this current moment. But anyways, the point is: I am happier. I can really recognize that now. Even though I don’t have the physical proof that a photo provides, I have my memory.
I can remember how I felt then and how I feel now. It’s an abstract collage of colors and splatters and shapes. I am mostly aware that I have gotten better at enjoying life. Sometimes that means walking around downtown and stopping at all the small shops like the Tibetian jewelry store to admire earrings you would never buy. Other times it’s getting dressed up to visit the Guggenheim so you can get the most out of your annual membership. Or cooking a yummy dinner of frozen chicken tenders and fennel salad while watching Pen15. Whatever it may be it usually happens in the moment. The beauty of life lies in spontaneity: that’s what I’ve experienced this year.
I say experienced and not learned because I feel quite shallow if I’m implying that I haven’t known of this cliché. Yeah, obviously, everyone has heard some iteration of that message multiple times in their life. I mean that I know how that feels now, why they all say it so much. But isn’t life and learning just about understanding those clichés through feeling and not seeing?
