This weekend, I went to a music festival called Camp Flog Gnaw, which was held by rapper Tyler, The Creator.
In the middle of his set, Tyler said, “I made this as a place for all you weird kids to have a place to feel safe and I think that’s really cool.”
During Jaden Smith’s set, he said “Tyler made this place for all you weirdo’s to feel normal and that’s tight as f***.”
Thank you Tyler for making a place like that. For maybe just a weekend, maybe just a minute, or maybe just an hour we all felt safe and loved. We could love or hate ourselves and whichever we chose would be okay.
No one tried to fix us; we just got to simply exist for a while and feel alright.
Thank you for giving us a place where we could be or do whatever we wanted and that was cool with everyone.
Somewhere we could wear whatever we wanted and not have to think twice about it, somewhere we could yell at the top of our lungs, somewhere we could cry if that song playing reminded you of something, somewhere we could jump and it was what you’re supposed to do, somewhere we could meet people like ourselves, somewhere where nothing was weird and everything and anything was ok.
One day, I’ll find that place in the people I surround myself with and where I live and where I work.
One day, but until I find my somewhere, I’ll stick to this. Thank you Tyler :’)
If you’ve ever wondered how it feels to see a person become someone else, it’s sort of like trying to hold water in your hands. You can keep your hands cupped together for a little while, but more and more of it begins to trickle through your fingers. You panic, try to hold back as much as you can, but, eventually, there’s so little left in your palms that you just let the rest fall to the floor.
Photo Credit: pinterest.com
That’s how it felt with you. It was like I was watching everything in slow motion. I tried to catch you, but now I know that you didn’t want me to.
I didn’t believe you when you told me you were leaving. I think in the back of my mind, I had been expecting it.
You’ve been my best friend, one of the most important people in my life, for as long as I can remember. But, now, I can’t remember the last time I saw you.
It still hurts. I’m still mad and I still don’t fully understand why you chose to go. You told me you needed to do it for yourself, that you needed to be selfish.
But I never thought you were being selfish. I just thought you were wrong.
You mean so, so much to me. I miss you more than you know.
I wish I could still see you everyday. I wish you were still the one who I went to before anyone else, the person I told everything to. But you’re not anymore. I know it could still be that way if we tried, but most days I just don’t feel like trying.
I think the reason I’m still mad is because it felt like you chose them over me. It still feels that way.
It hurts to see someone change, to see them become someone different.
But what hurts more is to leave them behind, to accept that your time together has come and gone. I’m not ready to do that yet.
When I think about May 31st, 2019, I think about what I’m leaving behind when I walk across the amphitheater to get my high school diploma.
I’m leaving behind the campus I’ve called my home the past four years, the classes where I challenged myself and found my passions, and the teachers who helped me find those passions. I’m leaving behind my friends, who I won’t see at breakfast every morning or go on camping trips with anymore.
These last four years weren’t always easy. As much as I’ve loved them, they were some of the most challenging years of my life. But, one thing made life away from home just a little easier to manage and it wasn’t my teachers or friends.
It was my horse. A bay, appendix quarter horse named Time who I’ve been riding since my freshman year. My family always asks me what I’ll miss the most about OVS when I leave and the answer is always the same: Time.
When the Thomas Fire came on December 4th, 2017, I panicked as we were evacuating on the bus thinking my horse wasn’t going to make it out alive. I cried myself to sleep, despite the constant reassurances. Over the summer, I ended up crying again when I went three months without riding and, more specifically, without riding Time. I don’t know what’s going to happen when I have to say goodbye to him during the last week of school knowing that it’ll be the last goodbye. Knowing hat I won’t be getting back on once summer is over. Knowing that one day, towards the end of May, I will untack for the last time and possibly never get back on him. That, the following September, he’ll get a new rider and I’ll be at a university in a completely different city. I hope that rider loves that freaking horse as much as I do, though. Sometimes I wonder if that’s possible.
So many things happened the last four years with Time by my side. I went with him to my first horse show, on my first horse camping trip, my first dressage clinic, and my first injury, which he gave me after he threw me off at said horse show. Even though I got a fractured back, the story was still funny and memorable.
Photo Credit: ignant.com
I can imagine leaving OVS and going off to college, but I can’t imagine leaving Time. I can’t imagine my school day not consisting of me going to the barn at the end of the day and getting on him whether the lesson ends up going well or not. I wish I could take him with me to college, but it’s probably not possible.
Last Friday, my aunt and uncle came to watch me ride. “I don’t understand how some people just let go of their horses or sell them,” my aunt said. “They’re pets too.”
Time may have not be mine legally, but he is mine. At least, I like to say he is and, at least, many other people thought Time was mine before I told them he wasn’t. But, he is my horse. The horse I’ve ridden for all of high school and the animal I’ve developed a bond with.
I’m not ready to let Time go, but I’ll have to and I will. Even if it might be one of the most painful things I’ll ever have to do.
An ode to self-discovery. To the once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that I hope to experience over and over again.
To the sunsets and the waves.
To driving with the windows down, blasting music and singing along.
To the late nights. To the stars.
To always being tired.
To the pile of work that seems to grow bigger and bigger no matter how fast I dig through it.
To the boy who doesn’t call anymore.
To my constant need to impress people, to earn their approval.
To not caring at all, then caring too much.
To my hopes and dreams, which are always changing, but always becoming more exciting.
To my fears. To making mistakes.
To being sixteen years old, an age that I’ve been waiting to be for a very long time.
To my best friends, who make every day worth while, and who are some of the greatest teachers I’ve ever had. I couldn’t imagine better people to spend this time with.
To living in the moment.
People tell us these are the best days of our lives. They pass too quickly.
I like to talk to you when life gets overwhelming. You help me forget about everything else for a while.
I know you don’t try to be, but you’re selfish sometimes. I like that, though.
Photo Credit pinterest.com
You talk about yourself most of the time, but that’s sort of what makes you so easy to talk to. I don’t have to worry about what to say because you don’t ask me about myself very much.
I’m always so wrapped up in everything going on with my own life. Problems with family, school, friends – there’s always some different worry bouncing around my head.
When I’m with you, they all slow down for a while. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, they disappear completely. It’s nice to get a break from myself.
I don’t think about anything else when we’re together. You’re so, so distracting, but always such a welcome distraction.
It’s sort of worrying, the way I forget about myself when I’m with you.
On the center of the granite countertop of the mini bar in my grandparents’ house, a home I spent the majority of my childhood in, sits a single polaroid. In that polaroid is a picture of me as a little girl, food all over my face with my dog right in front of me.
That is the only photo I have from my childhood and I can barely remember the story behind the photo. Now, it makes me wonder how many memories I’m missing out on because I can’t remember. This is also because I have no photos to revamp my memory.
I have no photos of myself with long hair, with my parents, or pictures of my dogs. All I have are my memories; the ones blurred between the lines of trauma and bliss that was my childhood, the ones I desperately want to forget and remember all at once.
Photo Credit: theverge.com
It’s terrifying that I have such a clear memory of the smallest details nowadays, but I can’t even remember the details of my parents’ faces. The little things in life that were defining aspects of my day to day life as a kid are blurred images in my mind today.
All I would have are these photos, but I don’t even have those.
Now, I have an abundance of videos and photos piling up in my Snapchat memories and phones new and old holding numbers of concert videos that I barely look at anymore. Videos that I refuse to give up, in case I want to look back on them and smile. I have photo albums filled with developed photos, polaroids from prom and random nights with friends, lining the shelves of the desk in my dorm room.
Some people say you need to live in the moment, to put your phone away and let your mind keep the images. But, I can’t. I don’t take photos and shaky videos to post them on my social media; I take them so I can hold on to the memories forever in the literal palm of my hand.
I have no photos from my childhood. Not a single one. Not in a photo album, on my phone, but I wish I did. As much as I try to forget everything from my life before I was ten, I wish the memories weren’t becoming just memories. I wish I could hold on to a photograph and relive the moment all over again.
But, that’s why I take photos all the time through the lens of three different cameras. So in thirty years, I can look back with a clear image and not just rely on the one in my head.
I was fifteen almost sixteen when I met this boy. He was great, he was everything I could have ever wanted, at least, that’s what I led myself to believe. I had a crush on him and, lucky for me, he liked me back. We started to date, but I remember that on the day that he asked me to be his girlfriend, something felt a little off. I first found out how pushy he was that night.
He was all over me. Like most teenage boys, he wanted more and I wasn’t ready for that. That night, nothing more than kissing happened, but it was too much kissing for me and I tried to tell him that, but he didn’t seem to care. I tried to brush it off and think nothing of it. After all, he was my first boyfriend and I could not mess it up; I was finally cool.
Photo Credit: victimservicecenter.org
Later on in the relationship the pushiness only got worse. My friends even started to help him in weird ways. On my sixteenth birthday, after only being together for a month, he had my friends lay roses on my bed and light candles. Anyone that saw that scene knew what was going to happen, but it was not something I was ready for. When I walked in, I yelled at my friends so loud that my mom came downstairs. Luckily, he wasn’t too pushy when he came over and I did not have sex with him, but some other things happened.
Every time he would come to my house, he would force me to please him and then text his dad to pick him up. After two months, I finally couldn’t take it any longer and wanted to break up with him. But, whenever I talked to anyone about breaking up with him, they told me not to. I know I shouldn’t have listened to other people, but I had no clue when or how to break up with him because he was bigger than me and I was scared of him. I didn’t want to find out what he would do to me.
Eventually, I broke up with him. I made sure it was in a very public place and it was actually okay. But, an easy breakup doesn’t mean I left without baggage. He sexually abused me. Him being my first boyfriend made it so I had no clue how relationships were truly supposed to be. He took my innocence away from me. Everyone talks about how one’s first relationship is full of love and innocence, but I never got that.
I hated myself for months after everything happened. I used to cry myself to sleep because I would think of him and what he did to me. At first, I was scared to tell people everything that happened. No one believed me and that made talking about it harder. I wanted to get him in trouble for what he did to me, because what he did to me is something I will carry the rest of my life; but, there was no way to get him in trouble. I wanted him to hurt as much as he hurt me. But, I was never able to do that, so I grew more mad as time went on. Pretty soon, I no longer saw myself as a person; I saw myself as an object for people to use.
About ten months after everything happened, I went to church camp. While I was there, my youth leader talked about how in Christianity one is supposed to forgive everyone as God has. Hearing that was very hard for me, so I talked to my leader more and he helped me work through everything that happened and cried with me. He was the first person to cry with me. I felt like he truly cared about me and, from that week, I learned to forgive my ex. It wasn’t easy; some days, I still get mad at him for the things he did to me, but I want to be a better Christian, so I am working as hard as I can to forgive him.
I have not fully overcome the conflict, but I have learned to deal with it and have started to forgive. One day, I hope I can say will full certainty that I forgive him, but until that day comes, I will be looking to God to get me there.
Their entire philosophy is based on the premise that when we start to say yes to things, we open ourselves to experiences that would never have been possible if we had said no. It encourages its followers to be spontaneous and preaches the idea that strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet.
To live out this philosophy, the main people involved are three 20-something, friendly, and fit guys who travel around the world and complete challenges based on the spontaneity and kindness of strangers.
In their latest video, one of the guys is abandoned alone in Slovakia with no money and no phone, where he must attempt to return to his friends in Budapest.
I love everything about this channel and I hope someday I can live my life in a similar fashion.
But, I know this isn’t as realistic for me. Simply, because I’m a woman.
The thought of being dropped off in and exploring a random country sounds like a dream. The thought of being dropped off alone in a random country sounds terrifying.
I hate that just by being female, doing anything becomes more dangerous. I am a strong believer that a woman can do anything a man can. While that is true, it’s also true that women have to take a lot more precautions than men do.
I read a study that asked groups of men and women about the things they do in their everyday life to avoid being assaulted. The responses from women went on for pages. For men, there was one answer: “Nothing. I don’t think about it.”
Photo Credit: twitter.com
Words cannot express how much I wish this weren’t the case, how much I wish men and women were really, truly equal when it comes to things like this.
I wish that my mom didn’t have to worry about me going to the beach with my girl friends at 5 PM, even though she is fine with my older brother going to the same place with his guy friends at one in the morning.
I wish that women weren’t twice as likely as men to experience sexual assault or violent crimes.
I wish it weren’t like this, but it is. And let me tell you, it sucks.
To any men who are reading this, appreciate the fact that you don’t have to make sure you have your keys in your hand when you’re walking to your car at night. Be grateful that when you’re running by yourself and a truck drives behind you, you don’t have to stop to let it pass so that you can see what it is doing. Remember that there is a reason why girls always go to the bathroom in groups.
Tell this to your sons. Make them understand what it’s like. Teach them how to make women feel safer.
Maybe someday we’ll live in a world where a young woman can walk through a city alone, the only thing on her mind being how grateful she is to be there, and her biggest concern being what she will eat for dinner.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your pain?
The only time I ever rated my pain a 10 was for the two weeks after my back surgery.
At least, until now.
Back in April, I fell off my horse and fractured my lower back. The pain was so intolerable that I ended up taking a sick day from school, which I have never done in my entire life.
When I got an x-ray back in June, the doctors told me that my back would heal itself over time, but no one told me the consequences of that process.
Nor did they tell me that the pain in my back would be everywhere but the location I had my injury.
Now, the pain is a 10/10 and I would not do it again.
Photo Credit:drrichardchiropractic.com.
But, it’s just not muscle pain, it’s nerve pain. Aches at the top of my back that feel like burning needles prickling all over my skin. The pain only comes every two months, for five days to a week, but, when the pain comes, it makes every moment of my day-to-day life absolute hell to live through.
I used to have such a high pain tolerance, at least for everything else, but, when it comes to my back, I’m so vulnerable. I can’t even sit through a class without being on the verge of tears because of the pain.
Thankfully, it doesn’t last. In a couple days, the pain will completely vanish and I can’t wait.
But, in just a couple months, the pain will sneak back up on me and I will dread it when it does.
When I was younger, I thought that by the time I was this age, I would have everything figured out.
Obviously, I haven’t lived up to that expectation. Looking back, I really didn’t have a clue what I would be, considering I thought High School Musical movies were a credible source for what teenagers are like.
Now that I’m actually in high school, I know that the expectations I had for this age were completely unrealistic. It’s definitely not as glamorous and there are far less organized musical numbers than I had envisioned.
But, when I think about who I will be in five or ten years, I picture some perfect version of myself. I’ll be kind and successful and doing all of the things that I wish I could be doing right now. I won’t be insecure about how I look, how I speak, or anything else that I care about now. I’ll have grown out of it by then, because I’ll have realized that it doesn’t matter.
Photo Credit: pinterest.com
I’m sixteen now, but I’m still fantasizing about my future self, just like I did when I was six years old, and my expectations are still probably just as ridiculous.
I like to think that once you grow up, you know yourself completely. I like to imagine that I’ll have it figured out. I won’t have to picture the type of person I want to be, because I’ll already be that person.
In a perfect world, it would work like that. But, this world is far from perfect, and so am I.
I don’t think anyone ever fully grows out of certain things. We learn and grow our whole lives, but it’s not like everything just magically falls into place one day.
When all is said and done, I just hope that who I am in ten years is someone I’d like to know now.
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