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"I've only lived 18 years, but I don't want to change any of them. They're all part of my life, even the failures." -Makise Kurisu
It's that time of year again where we must say goodbye to a class and this time it's actually one I've really enjoyed and has helped me a lot. Everything from the blog post to the narrative project and even the research project to some extent though that more or less just drove home the problems I've been dealing with for the past year or so. this class has been in many ways very cathartic for the struggles I've been facing in my personal life. For instance the Three Good Things a Day blog was a much needed reprieve. I've always focused on the bad in my life whether on purpose or through some subconscious form of torment I felt the need to put myself through. For better or worse I've always worn my heart on my sleeve and sometimes that can let stuff hit me harder than it should. That week of just keeping track of what went was a major boost to my general mood (if only I kept up with it).
The narrative project was another big one for me this semester. The major theme for my whole website has been how much the past is important even the worst times. I won't move past that day, but I can eventually truly come to terms with it and have it not effect me as much when my brain decides to randomly remind me about it ten years later. If I were to choose the thing that had the biggest impact though it would be the blog by a large margin. I've never been a great talker when I'm not being forced to speak. I work retail and can speak to customers and coworkers all day no problem, but ask me to speak about something in a class room (or talk to friends about serious topics) and I freeze up. This blog has been a tremendous way to write the thoughts and feelings in my head in a coherent manner (and not just shout them out at no one on twitter). I really wish I kept up with my Digiblog series though (part 1 and 2). That was my first attempt at writing a long term project just for fun since high school. Who knows I might continue it after this is all said and done. Hell I've been kicking around the idea of posting the old stories I've tried writing over the years here so I can get back the drive to finish them. All in all that would be three total stories, one with only two chapters, one with five or six chapters done, and one that I actually completed the first draft for the first of three books. This was a good semester all in all. I may have fallen off a little bit towards the end due to some personal circumstances, but I was able to finish my second semester back after a year and a half away from school, I found a great outlet to do some writing for fun every now and then, and I just had one of the best classes ever. Here's to the future. "Consider, can the universe be justifiably called infinite? Doubtful. It may not have a discernible end, but it had a beginning and its component parts definitely have a limited cosmological shelf-life. Splitting hairs or not, if history tells us anything, it's that scientists often make very poor poets. We're all just a ship of fools chasing phantoms, heedless of what really underwrites natural law." - Okabe Rintaro
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Admittedly I've already covered this one to a certain extent in my blog about family, but I'll do my best to not repeat things. That being said let's dive into the second part of my eight part series, this one being about Friendship.
Friendship didn't always come easy for me. I've always had friends but it wasn't till around 7th grade that I had a "friend group". Before that I had one or two really close friends that I would hangout with every weekend and try to meet up with after school. Once 7th grade hit my... I don't want to say former best friend cause he and I are still close, but we haven't been as close as we used to ever since he had to go out of town for college, anyway my other best friend Steve introduced me to who would become my first/only girlfriend and my ex. Than we made friends with the guy that stole Steve's lunchbox every lunch, not hyperbole it was in fact every lunch, Barr (he's also named Nick so we call him by his last name. Than came in Mike, than the two Ryan's, than Josh. By freshman year I had a group of pretty good people to hangout with. Than by the end of the first year of college, Josh had become an intolerable jackass, Mike showed his true colors as a manipulative asshole, Hom (one of the Ryan's) and I just drifted apart, and after a year of dating my ex and I broke up. During that first year of college however I met a few new friends as well. After awkwardly walking up to the three of the them while they were playing Yu-Gi-Oh (never too old for a card game especially since Yu-Gi-Oh nowadays take a freaking math degree to understand). Alex, Peter, and Eric were soon integrated with my core friend group. From there came Ellie and my soon to be current best friend and Eric's girlfriend Katie. Now we cut to about two years later and well... Peter and Ellie walked away from the group because (and this is an unfortunate theme throughout the past few years) people couldn't be adults and talk their shit out. Alex revealed himself to be a very toxic person to be around and we said our goodbyes to him last winter. Now though, we have Eric's brother EJ, Emily, someone Barr, Travers (second Ryan), and myself went to high school with and Jyn (another Katie and Travers' girlfriend) in the group. So the question is why would I go through this long backstory for this blog. Why divulge what some could say has been a mixed bag of luck in keeping friends and picking friends. Well to obviously illustrate some kind of point. Honestly that should be pretty obvious. Friendship to me is one of the most important things in the world. The support of a friend can mean so much more than a family member's. There is no obligation any friend has to help you through your rough times, to pick you up when you fall. Good friends will be around when you get back up on your feet, those you can call family will help you stand back up. Take Katie for instance. The night of my narrative essay I was a wreck. She was the first person I told and she was the one that checked on me the most afterwards. Steve was there for me when my ex and I broke up. Eric has seen through the masks I wear more than anyone else. Barr is always the first to motivate me to try something new. Emily is the first to point out bullshit and put an end to it. EJ and Jyn are amazing example of what it means to be an 'adult' while still being a kid at heart. Travers has had my back several times over the years. Other than my parents I couldn't even begin to make similar praises about my family, let alone my extended family. I couldn't say similar things about any of the people I've worked with over the past few years or the people I've gamed with online. Friendship can be the strongest and most rewarding thing in the world, but as I've shown it can also be the most fragile thing to hold on to. I've had friends come and go for a multitude of reasons some good and some not so good. It's the one that have stuck around through my worst times and continue to root for me for my best times are the one that are wroth keeping, They are worth the trouble. They are worth the headaches. They are worth the heartaches. They are worth everything they've put me through and they are worth everything I've put them through. Alright. So THIS derailed a little bit. The point is that friends will always be there, when you're doubting yourself even when they are struggling themselves. If you can find a good group, real fucking good group of people hold onto them. Work through the shit that tries to pull you apart and come out stronger because of it. So quick side note before we get started, I fucking love Digimon. I watched the various shows religiously as a kid and I've gotten back into it with the most recent two games (which are outstanding and great turned based RPG games) so that's where the idea for this series of blogs comes from. In the original show there are eight crests representing eight values, Courage, Friendship, Love, Knowledge, Sincerity, Reliability, Hope, and Light (they are also my newest necklace set because why not). The last one not so much a value in the traditional sense, but can still be interpreted as such. So I thought in the middle of class today, hey I like sharing the thoughts in my head (here and here) and I've definitely have thoughts on these so why not right about them? I'm going to go in order listed above so without further ado let's talk about courage.
Courage is a weird thing. A courageous act to one person can be seen as a reckless/stupid one to another and sometimes to a third person as a cowardly one. Let's look as this example. Say you see a friend in trouble, whether it's physical, verbal, emotional, whatever someone you know is in trouble in someway shape or form and you know trying to help them will but you in danger as well, what's the courageous thing to do? Do you go and help them even though you might get hurt as well. but isn't that a reckless action that could make the situation worse? Okay so you instead go get someone better suited to handle the situation because your recognize that you aren't the best person to handle this situation, well now you're possibly leaving a friend alone and walking away you coward. Maybe the situation is that your friend is doing something illegal. Is the courageous thing to confront them upfront about it or to tell the authorities. Well now aren't you either butting into a situation you aren't involved in or being a snitch and possibly ruining a friends life or at the very least their faith and trust in you. So what in the hell is courage? To me courage is all of that. It's helping and not helping a friend. It's confronting a friend about a problem or telling the people that need to know. It's making the tough decisions that no one else can, will, or wants to make. It's recognizing when you need to swallow your pride and confront a part of you head on. It's admitting you're not equipped to handle a situation and getting someone who can. It's choosing to help someone when no one else can or will. Courage is admitting you need help and you aren't invincible. Courage is admitting you are losing against your inner demons and asking for help. Courage is admitting you can be wounded and need a pick me up. Courage is talking about the shit going wrong in your life. Courage is asking for help. Courage is not holding all of that in. Courage is not shouldering the world. Courage is not fighting by yourself. Courage is not taking everything on by yourself so other people don't deal with your baggage. Courage is in all of us. Even small bits. It comes out when it needs to know, but not always when we want it to. Running isn't cowardice, admitting you need help isn't weak, saying that I'm not strong enough for this isn't pathetic. Courage isn't black and white. A courageous act by one person in a different scenario could be seen as a reckless one. A courageous act can be as small asking that person out, admitting you need to go back to school, admitting you aren't as happy as you make yourself out to be, or admitting you took on too much at once and you need to drop something. Today has been an interesting day. Yeah, interesting is the best word for it. My original plan today was to hangout with my best friend and watch Your Lie in April and absolutely fantastic anime about a child piano prodigy. She unfortunately wasn't feeling well so I used today to get some stuff done and just be by myself. It's been a while since I've done that. Between work, family, school, and my friends I haven't just been by myself for awhile now and I didn't realize just how much I needed that. I was able to recharge my mental and emotional batteries and listened to a lot of slower and more somber songs. One of which being The Real Me by Andrew Stein.
This song has always resonated with me. At some points in my life more so than others, but today was the first time it really sank in. There are very few people that i would consider that I'm truly myself with. I would imagine that's true for most everyone though. We all act differently depending on the situation. From school to family to work to the general public everyone dons a different persona to make interactions go as smoothly as possible. I'm no different. At the same time though wouldn't it be appropriate to say we constantly reject a certain aspect of ourselves at any given moment? At any point in time we feel we have to repress a part of our true self to fit into the environment we find ourselves in. Which would also lead to the conclusion that people are very rarely their true selves. Take me for instance. Most people would say I'm rather shy and quiet in school. I don't speak out in class too often and when I do it's usually quick and short blurbs. When I'm with my family, every single word I say is calculated. Before I even begin to speak I run through my head every possible scenario that could stem from what I'm about to say. When I'm with my friends I will shout out any little thing that comes to mind and not care what the hell happens afterward. When I'm by myself I think about this kind of stuff and usually torture myself over all the little shit I did wrong in the past week. So when can someone truly be themselves? When can anyone show every last shred of their personality and being? If I only knew. My best friend is the person I am the closest too and she has gotten the closest to seeing the "real me", but even she hasn't seen everything and it's getting more and more tiring to keep up all of this different masks. I'm tired of keeping quiet, of constantly planning everything I say, of not being able to show my friends a part of me that's becoming more and more important. I'm also terrified of what will happen. What if I say something in class that get's spread throughout campus, what if a off handed remark leads to a fight with my sister's and I say things I can't take back? What if the rest of my friends aren't as accepting and I lose them? At the very least I know the last one is nothing to worry about, but fear is a force that can paralyze the best of us. |
Nick D'AversaWriter, outstandingly good at mouthing along to songs, level 9 Dragonborn Blood Hunter, and just trying to figure out what in the hell I'm doing. Archives
February 2019
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