No one appreciates a day of doing nothing. I don’t mean likes sleeping, doing nothing. I mean reading a book, watching a chick-flick, drinking a cup of tea, doing nothing kind of day. I like going out, having fun with friends but more than anything I like doing nothing. 

Sleepovers

The thing about sleepovers is they stop being about sleeping after a certain age. They start being about drinking or boys or drinking with boys. When we were little the idea of staying up late at a different person’s house terrified us. When we got older the idea of boys and alcohol scared us. But we faced our fears with pillows and sleeping bags and later with spin the bottle and cheap vodka. This didn’t come without its embarrassing moments. Unfortunately for me it involved a lot of puking. First at my friend’s house in the first grade and a bad cause of the stomach flu and later on the white carpet of my best friend’s house with the help of wine coolers and vodka. We used these moments and the friends we trusted to face our greatest fears: the dark, being away from home, using the substances we were always told we shouldn’t, kissing boys we were told to stay away from, sneaking out of houses we were supposed to be in. They were a part of growing up and although some of us skipped a few steps we all have our good memories (and our bad) from our sleepovers. 

I want to do everything,  I want to be happy.

I go to a very good high school, and I am grateful for my education. When you enter high school, suddenly you are bombarded with questions about what you want to do for the rest of your life. And when you enter a very good high school the only expectable answer is college, a major in something practical, and a stable, long lasting career. On New Year’s Eve I reconnected with a guy I used to know.  I found out that in the year we had not spoken he had moved to New Zealand and was doing amazing, inspiring things. I started thinking about what I had done in that same year and realized I was in almost the same place I started the year in, which was not to say a good place. And you see this friend he didn’t go to Minnetonka High school, he went to a public school in Minneapolis. His life after high school was not mapped out by generations of family members and expectations from parents. He got to choose his future. There is a theory in sociology that human beings are born with many talents and societies and cultures such as those in America force human beings into a single talent. Most people are unhappy in this aspect because it means that they are not living up to their full potential.  I like physics, and writing, and genetics and cooking. I don’t want to choose. I think college is the right choice for me, and maybe that is because I was raised with that belief that college was important, and it is. And to do any of the things I want to do I need an education but I don’t want to be unhappy doing only one thing. I want to do everything. 

I am a bit of a hypochondriac. Now hear me out; I do have a lot of ailments for a seventeen year old. I have terrible allergies, asthma, my digestive system doesn’t really digest very well, and I get horrible migraines. But I have this ability to go from headache to brain tumor before you can say neurologist. I worry and not to brag but I'm really good at it. I worry constantly about my health, my family, my friends, people I don't know, clothes, homework, college. Do you like my new hair color, do I like my new hair color, I don't know but I'm worried about it. Literally anything you can think of. And I think it’s kinda ruining my life. I have so much going on in my head it’s really hard to live in the real world. I think the key is to want to, and I'm working on that. 

2014 is going to be good. I will be good. No more lying. Less tears. More exercise. Less candy. Less cheese, more vegetables. More love. More making out. More fun. More books, less TV. More vodka, less tequila. The same amount of shoes. More art, more music, more writing. Way more writing. More sleep. More coffee. More tea. No depression. More learning. More enjoying. Less bullies. Less mean people. More beautiful people. More money to good causes. Less money on ultimately worthless things. Less waste. Less fat. Less worry. Less anxiety. More pictures. More videos. More documentation. More hats. Hopefully more hair, maybe less. More money? Less worrying about money. More memories. More papers I enjoy writing. Less boredom. Less things. Less pills, less doctors appointments. More friends, better friends. More experiences. More terrible puns. More blog posts. Less celebrity trash. More tears of joy. More fairy lights. More warm sweaters. More beaches. More bikinis. More self-confidence. Less self-hate. No self-hate. More nerdiness. More Doctor Who.  More superheroes. Less panic. Less paranoia. More love. More family. More hugs. Less existential crisis. Less selfishness. Less swallowness. More travel. More me. More me in the world. 2014 will be more than good, 2014 will be AMAZING. And I will make it that way!

2013

A Spoken Word

Frances Stevenson

            2013 was interesting. A mixed bag. I escaped a depression I had been fighting for a while. Quit a job I hated for a year and a half and found love and acceptance in a class of two year olds. Made less money. Got lost in my own head and realized I needed to make a change, got started on the path to self-acceptance. Met a boy, met a less boyish boy who I had known forever, did nothing with either boy. Felt completely alone, fell back into depression and made a vow to stop alienating self. Bought a lot of things I didn’t need. Started working out. Ate more vegetables. Lost some weight. Gained some weight.  Lied, a lot. Drank more water. Got overly upset at a ripped pair of jeans. Bought new jeans. Discovered the incredible power of fairy lights and alcohol. Took more medications. Saw more doctors. Felt sicker, felt healthier. Started flossing, stopped flossing. Enjoyed learning. Enjoyed school. Stopping enjoying school. Met a bully. Tried to ignore bully. Felt smart. Felt stupid at the hands of “friends”. Stopped letting other people define me. Failed. Let my nerdy freak flag fly. Bought A LOT of shoes. Felt bad about throwing things away. Broke things. Was terrible human being. Hated other human beings. Cried. Let a beautiful and cold Sunday pass unencumbered by the outside world. Healed. Drank equal amounts of coffee and tea. Started eating fish again. Tried to stop eating dairy, failed, ate in moderation.  Wrote. Was awkward. Was awkward as hell. Talked to dad more. Felt apart of family, felt nothing like family. Read a lot of books, watched slightly more television.  Joined the growing world of the internet generation, felt less alone. Enjoyed no responsibilities. Waited for 2014.

A little poem I wrote about the hot muggy weather.

What once was freedom

has become its own sort of captivity

holding on to me and dragging me down with it

down and down

as my heart beats faster and my lungs fill with the unnecessary water

in the air

the cloudless sky and shiny sun

burn as I bike, walk, jog to the nearest entrance

to the sweet freedom of air conditioning.