I figured I might as well let you all know that I'm not dead, especially since I haven't written for Dazzled in a while and my Twitter is private.
Okay. So firstly, I've been thoroughly stressed out this year. Between my classes, college applications, and still having time for myself, senior year has certainly taken a toll on my well-being.
I've been contemplating how temporary everything in the world is, and I've been thinking a lot about growing up and mortality. I've been thinking about how I can't go back to my childhood, that adulthood is inevitable, that someday I will be old, and that someday I will die. I've been thinking very existentially about this thing called LIFE and how it happens to everyone. I ask myself is it better to be "born to die," or is it better to have never existed in the first place? I imagine that this is my teen angst coming back to get me in a more crazed, philosophical form before I outgrow it.
College has been on my mind, and has been a major source of insecurity for me lately. I send out my applications, my test scores, my essays, and I wonder if any of it was good enough. I worry my test scores are too low to get accepted, I worry my essays were poorly-written or uninteresting, I worry that I don't have enough extracurricular activities, I worry that my letters of recommendation won't be good enough. I don't like this feeling of sending college applications because it's such a long, drawn-out process over which I feel I have no control. Some stranger (or group of strangers) is going to make a judgment on me that will impact the next four years of my life and possibly my entire adult life, and that's... insane.
I am becoming increasingly obsessed with Wes Anderson's movies. I first saw Fantastic Mr. Fox in April, which prompted me to then watch The Royal Tenenbaums and Rushmore. Then, I watched The Darjeeling Limited and Moonrise Kingdom a few months later. There's something really likable about Wes Anderson's movies. The visuals, the soundtracks, the dialogue, the costumes, it's all so gorgeous. But I think one of my favorite things about his movies is that they feature a lot of the same actors. Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, I could go on. It's like they're a high school theatre troupe, always under the direction of Wes Anderson. In high school theatre, you see the same actors over and over again because you're limited to the students in the school who signed up for drama club.
Despite college insecurities, I've become a lot less insecure about my abilities in school. So far, my senior year classes have taught me that I'm capable of a lot more than I realize.
However, it wouldn't be a typical year for me if it wasn't marred by some insecurities. As a senior, I've been learning what it means to be a leader. I worry about how to be a good leader. How to be likable but assertive enough to get things done. How to lead by example even though I wonder if I'm capable of doing so.
I'm also trying to make time to read, which is difficult to do with my busy schedule. I'm 50-some pages into a novel that I really like so far. I try to take advantage of my study halls when I can. I'm also trying to exercise more. Blogilates was perfect for me during the summer, and I'm trying to exercise with Cassey Ho's videos as much as I can despite the craziness of my life right now.
So...yeah. It's been pretty crazy, lately. But Thanksgiving is almost here (in the US, that is), and considering that it's one of my favorite holidays, I think things are going to be okay.
~Abbey xoxo