The (not so) generic update blog.

For my future self:

You've changed since this time last year; to be more precise, you haven't changed much at all. It's a strange phenomenon and I'm not quite sure it's a solely "millenial" experience but in the blog/vlog/media sphere it is almost a given that when you see the word UPDATE anywhere you will watch/read about/ listen to the following:

• someone telling you that things have been tough lately
• they are on the mend
• everything will be fine.

When I was younger, it was an insult to be told that you had changed. It was honestly the worst thing you could be called. I remember how I would physically recoil from the accusation that I had changed. It was a visceral and physical reaction to a word which was a plague; the mere mention of it had me thinking I was tainted with a disease. I imagine that this is to do with the naiive way in which you think that things stay the same forever. There is a lot of complexity you could unpack from that but for me in this moment, the reason that I'm remembering that is because as I'm growing older, there are changes that are happening and I can sense that somethings are shifting in my universe. But at the same time, things are stagnant. Really stagnant. 

This time last year, I was really sad. Deeply and profoundly sad. I won't forget that moment I had where I just needed to see the 'Seagram Murals' at the Tate. I have no idea why but they just seemed, at the time, like something I had to see. I will go back there before I start school again, to see if they evoke something else.

Reflecting back on last year, I was hurt. I was lonely. I still am those things but I have a bit more certainty than I did last year. Also, I feel like I cried so much last summer and this past year in general that my body has almost given all of it up. I feel the same things but just not as acutely. What worries me though about my future, is that my fear about pursuing the things that I want will get in the way of me actually achieving them. Getting older, there is an inevitability that follows you. Multiple 'inevitabilities' if you will. Death. Ageing. And they're the minor ones. 

I can't express entirely what I mean but it's this feeling that there are certain questions that I need to ask myself about how I want to move forward in my life (what a horrible cliche). However, these questions are questions whose answers I have maintained for years. Surely my answers should be changing. Or I should at least be more open to changing them? Instead, even when my hopes are pointing in a particular direction, my answers are stagnant. Again, it's this desire to give in to my fear rather than overcome it.

Eurgghhhhh. I have spontaneously word vomited here but anyway, to end my (not so) generic update blog-

• 
  
• things have been tough this past year
• they are not entirely on the mend
• things will probably be ok but I have a feeling there is more suckiness to come.

x

T