大暑

Major heat.

It has actually been quite hot the past week, which is nice. I don’t think I did much either… I enrolled in my courses for the next year. Amazing how I’m already going to be entering my third year. I really didn’t expect to make it this far.

I spent a good amount of last year alone, which let me do quite a bit of retrospective pondering. It was usually aimless and circular, but I suppose that is what entertains the lonely. On my 19th birthday, while at karaoke with some extended family, I ended up thinking of a metaphor for one’s past. I thought about how the things that I found unsettling about either my childhood or school years I ended up carrying with me, like balloons. A whole bunch of balloons, each carrying a memory of something bad. I thought about it sadly: why did I have to carry those with me? Why was my story like this? Why did these events and memories define who I am? … and so on.

Last night I went back to that thought by accident, and noticed that over the years, I’ve created quite a few metaphors for my sadness. There were the balloons, but I had also characterized it as a shadow, or some sort of burden; or as a parasite that dwells in my centre, taking up all the space; or like a character profile in games that pulls up my stats and skills; or a weight that keeps me stuck to the floor. Sometimes, I would be afraid of keeping them, and distanced myself away from those feelings-thoughts-memories, while other times, I’d imagined them as part of me. Part of what made me who I am, something that can’t be divorced. I guess those are all right, but in a way, it’s also just all… the result of over-thinking.

Well, it’s a great way to pass time. A thought exercise. Anyway, back to last night: I was watching dumb videos before sleeping of an interview. The person being interviewed spoke about being the child of a famous person, and having their flaws being televised from a young age, and all sorts of troubles that I could not imagine nor relate to. But, perhaps because this person was close in age to me, or perhaps because of some other silly reason, I could empathize. Everyone has their own sadness that they carry around. Who hasn’t felt wronged, especially as a young child? Either through making mistakes, or facing the consequences of others’ mistakes, we end up growing up.

So when I say I hate someone or something that I experienced, I don’t usually mean that I truly, one hundred percent hated them without remorse, but that I hate that whatever happened did happen, and that I hate how it made us feel. I say I hate high school, which usually just amounts to me hating the constant anxiety and unrealistic standards and unhealthy coping methods. I say I hate a specific person, but I usually just mean I hate how they treated other people/me, or the way they act in certain situations, or just how our relationship deteriorated. It also doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ve removed all instances of it from my mind, since I can still learn something from them.

I’ve yet to figure out how to navigate (with) my sadness, but I’m guessing I’ll figure it out with time.

This blog post has a bit of a different flavour from the last few, but I figured some change wouldn’t be bad. There’s really no major takeaway from this post either, just more of a acknowledgement that we’re all kind of not okay, but it’s okay anyway. I’m here to have fun, not mope around.