(no subject)
"I'm changing constantly, not because I'm insecure, but because I can't stand repetition."
This girl wrote this in her blog. I'm kinda blown away by that. Totally sounds like a line from an indie song. I'm in love with this line. There's something innocently pretentious about it, if you follow that.
Why do we change? Hm? Why? Is it because we discover something about our personality that we can't stand and we want to make it different? Is it because we don't think we're as cool as we could be? Is it because of outside stimuli? Is it because we decide to drink coffee, or smoke cigarettes, or bake bread, or flirt with girls at bars to get boys to notice us? Why do we change? Do we ever really think about it? Is it because we're bored with repetition, and being the same person day in and day out? Or is it because we don't think we're up to snuff little realizing that no one is up to snuff? (Then there's the discussion on Who Decides What IS and ISN'T Snuff.)
I have claimed recently that I haven't changed all that much in the past ten years. I'm willing to believe that's true. Despite the fact that ten years ago I was nearly thirteen. Then again, I think that year: the year I was twelve and thirteen, was a pretty defining year for me. I was beginning to understand what it meant to me to be a feminist, the whole Anthony Hafford incident happened, I realized I was a million times cooler than Lauren Saliga and that girl she was friends with (Kelly?), my love for Evan Beamer was tailing off rapidly; I had my friends and I realized that they and my passions were enough to make me happy.
It must have been seventh grade that I decided that I wasn't going to buy into the hype of all the Big, Important Things that I was supposed to care about, but didn't. I wasn't going to go along with these things because as a teenage girl I was supposed to. It must have been then because then when we entered eighth grade at the high school, my overwhelming sense of 'you're not better than me just because I'm a lowly eighth grader' set in and that was when I started to not-give-a-fuck about a lot of things.
I suppose the only things that really have changed about me and my personality are my Christian ideology. It went from being pretty loose to pretty crazy to pretty straight-laced to pretty loose again. The foray into a Pentacostal church, then the somewhat ultra-conservative (for Massachusetts, anyway) Greater Grace - which I still like and enjoy, however I have made up my mind on many subjects and my ideas on certain subjects might surprise the people in attendance there -- which could be a lot of fun, quite frankly!
But isn't this the way its supposed to go? You're not necessarily supposed to know who you are when you are twelve. There ought to still be things you're trying to figure out about yourself. There isn't any time when you magically know who you are and your role in the universe. Some people never figure out who they are. Some people know early on. For others it's not until sometime in their adult life that they figure out who they are and what they can do about that. I don't claim to know exactly who I am and what I'm capable of -- clearly I don't quite have that last part down yet! But I do think that I figured out a lot of things pretty early.
After the whole Anthony Hafford thing, I decided I would never be take for a fool. That's when I began setting my standards in boyfriends as high as they are. I feel no shame in that. I will not relive that experience because I am definitely worth more than that. On the flip side, that incident has also set in my mind the idea that if he doesn't fight for me then he doesn't actually like me all that much - and therefore, in my attempt to not be swayed by how things seem I might just be closing off more avenues than I realize. Ew. Ok, totally not the point. My self-worth was something I figured out early on with the help of an ignorant asshole and Amy Tan (pretty sure I watched The JoyLuck Club for the first time around then).
Through years of observing and paying attention to the things my older sisters said and did, I figured out in elementary school that high school, while fun, was pretty lame. Arbitrary, in fact. The things that happened in high school, I knew before I entered, weren't going to matter afterwards. Because after high school you go to college where no one knows you or has any preconceived concept of who you are. Like getting a clean slate. Whenever you start anything new you have a chance to redefine yourself. That's amazing. And I knew that in high school; therefore, I did not care one jot what those people thought about me. I was free to be who I wanted to be at the time knowing full well that after graduation I would probably only ever see a handful of those people ever again. So I became the weird hippie girl. I was smart, I was musical, I was insecure, I was pretty nice, I was quiet, I was kind of bitchy sometimes, I got good grades, I gossiped, I was involved in some high school activities -- sure sometimes I dressed different and, possibly, said weird things, but if I was made fun of behind my back, I was never ostracized. If I had been, it wouldn't have made any difference.
I think that girl has it right. Don't change because of something lacking in yourself or because you're insecure or because of somebody else: Change periodically because repetition gets boring. Sometimes Change is needed. Cut your hair, pierce your navel, get colored contacts, get new glasses, wear purple for a year, stand on the furniture (if I'm desperate for change and there's nothing I can do, I change my perspective by standing on the furniture). Change is good. Change is an excellent catharsis. It's active and dynamic and it's healthy.
This girl wrote this in her blog. I'm kinda blown away by that. Totally sounds like a line from an indie song. I'm in love with this line. There's something innocently pretentious about it, if you follow that.
Why do we change? Hm? Why? Is it because we discover something about our personality that we can't stand and we want to make it different? Is it because we don't think we're as cool as we could be? Is it because of outside stimuli? Is it because we decide to drink coffee, or smoke cigarettes, or bake bread, or flirt with girls at bars to get boys to notice us? Why do we change? Do we ever really think about it? Is it because we're bored with repetition, and being the same person day in and day out? Or is it because we don't think we're up to snuff little realizing that no one is up to snuff? (Then there's the discussion on Who Decides What IS and ISN'T Snuff.)
I have claimed recently that I haven't changed all that much in the past ten years. I'm willing to believe that's true. Despite the fact that ten years ago I was nearly thirteen. Then again, I think that year: the year I was twelve and thirteen, was a pretty defining year for me. I was beginning to understand what it meant to me to be a feminist, the whole Anthony Hafford incident happened, I realized I was a million times cooler than Lauren Saliga and that girl she was friends with (Kelly?), my love for Evan Beamer was tailing off rapidly; I had my friends and I realized that they and my passions were enough to make me happy.
It must have been seventh grade that I decided that I wasn't going to buy into the hype of all the Big, Important Things that I was supposed to care about, but didn't. I wasn't going to go along with these things because as a teenage girl I was supposed to. It must have been then because then when we entered eighth grade at the high school, my overwhelming sense of 'you're not better than me just because I'm a lowly eighth grader' set in and that was when I started to not-give-a-fuck about a lot of things.
I suppose the only things that really have changed about me and my personality are my Christian ideology. It went from being pretty loose to pretty crazy to pretty straight-laced to pretty loose again. The foray into a Pentacostal church, then the somewhat ultra-conservative (for Massachusetts, anyway) Greater Grace - which I still like and enjoy, however I have made up my mind on many subjects and my ideas on certain subjects might surprise the people in attendance there -- which could be a lot of fun, quite frankly!
But isn't this the way its supposed to go? You're not necessarily supposed to know who you are when you are twelve. There ought to still be things you're trying to figure out about yourself. There isn't any time when you magically know who you are and your role in the universe. Some people never figure out who they are. Some people know early on. For others it's not until sometime in their adult life that they figure out who they are and what they can do about that. I don't claim to know exactly who I am and what I'm capable of -- clearly I don't quite have that last part down yet! But I do think that I figured out a lot of things pretty early.
After the whole Anthony Hafford thing, I decided I would never be take for a fool. That's when I began setting my standards in boyfriends as high as they are. I feel no shame in that. I will not relive that experience because I am definitely worth more than that. On the flip side, that incident has also set in my mind the idea that if he doesn't fight for me then he doesn't actually like me all that much - and therefore, in my attempt to not be swayed by how things seem I might just be closing off more avenues than I realize. Ew. Ok, totally not the point. My self-worth was something I figured out early on with the help of an ignorant asshole and Amy Tan (pretty sure I watched The JoyLuck Club for the first time around then).
Through years of observing and paying attention to the things my older sisters said and did, I figured out in elementary school that high school, while fun, was pretty lame. Arbitrary, in fact. The things that happened in high school, I knew before I entered, weren't going to matter afterwards. Because after high school you go to college where no one knows you or has any preconceived concept of who you are. Like getting a clean slate. Whenever you start anything new you have a chance to redefine yourself. That's amazing. And I knew that in high school; therefore, I did not care one jot what those people thought about me. I was free to be who I wanted to be at the time knowing full well that after graduation I would probably only ever see a handful of those people ever again. So I became the weird hippie girl. I was smart, I was musical, I was insecure, I was pretty nice, I was quiet, I was kind of bitchy sometimes, I got good grades, I gossiped, I was involved in some high school activities -- sure sometimes I dressed different and, possibly, said weird things, but if I was made fun of behind my back, I was never ostracized. If I had been, it wouldn't have made any difference.
I think that girl has it right. Don't change because of something lacking in yourself or because you're insecure or because of somebody else: Change periodically because repetition gets boring. Sometimes Change is needed. Cut your hair, pierce your navel, get colored contacts, get new glasses, wear purple for a year, stand on the furniture (if I'm desperate for change and there's nothing I can do, I change my perspective by standing on the furniture). Change is good. Change is an excellent catharsis. It's active and dynamic and it's healthy.