Last Week #12 | Room to Grow

This week, I had the inexplicable yet powerful urge to clean out. Specifically, my bookshelves. My bookshelves have for a while been a source of pride for me, related to owning things. It was like, look at my shelves, look how full they are. A modern day version of Ariel's "look at this stuff, isn't it neat...wouldn't you say my collection's complete?" But recently when I've looked at them I haven't seen a complete collection but an outdated and no longer relevant one. The objects we own are often reflections of ourselves, and the things I had on my bookshelves no longer reflected who I am. So, I cleaned out.

 During the process, I found myself wanting to get rid of half of the books and stories I'd collected over the past three years. Finding myself a different person than I was then, and not necessarily wanting to erase that old version, but wanting to clear out the outdated remnants of her. I felt like I got a software update this week. I cleaned out those books that I no longer feel the need to hold on to. And while there were pieces I just couldn't let go of-- like my Harry Potter books, there are also pieces of me my body won't let me let go of-- like my anxiety.

 This week, for the first time in a long time, I got extremely anxious around people again. It was frustrating, disheartening, and ultimately uncomfortable, but I realized that it doesn't mean I'm the same person I was, just because I can't give away that part of myself as easily as I can give away a box of books. I've been seeing this theme lately-- that anxiety will always be with me, it may always affect me, maybe for the rest of my life. That is a distinct possibility I have always accepted. But there's a difference now. Just because it affects me doesn't mean it has to hold me back. I used to see each anxiety attack as a reason not to try. A reason to stop in my tracks, and take a turn away from the thing that gave me anxiety to begin with. Because that's what logical people do, right? When something hurts them, they stop doing it. But I've learned that courage is being afraid and doing it anyway. So I'm going to keep trying, even when it's hard. I'm going to move on and I'm going to do what scares me and I'm going to KEEP COMING BACK until those things doesn't give me anxiety anymore.

I looked at my shelves yesterday and didn't like how barren and empty they seemed. I felt like I had lost pieces of me. But this morning, I look at them and see that I've simply discarded the clutter, and given myself room to grow. Room to grow into myself. I made room for new this week. On my shelves, and in my life.

 -Fran

This Week [#2: A Little Out of Focus]

Welcome to my week. It was a little out of focus.

  Mondays: When you get boring, mundane things done and it makes you feel like the king of the world... Like finishing a book you've been reading for a month, finishing season 2 of 30 Rock, cleaning your car, and doing laundry.

 Tuesdays: The great thing about going out to breakfast is that it's one less thing you have to do before you leave when you inevitably get up too late because you were having a dream about Evan Peters.

 Wednesdays: When you surprise yourself by writing essays and then the world gets very exhausting.

Thursdays: When you do yoga, draft essays and then FaceTime a two year old.

 Fridays: When you get a check in the mail that you weren't expecting, which feels like a sign from the universe that you're on the right track, so you decide to go home the long way round and experience some truly gorgeous views.

 Saturdays: When you find yourself scream-singing the new Adele album, both with your best friend in her coffee shop at too early of an hour, and alone in your car at a much later one.

Sundays: When you go to "breakfast" that ends up being both breakfast and lunch, (but not brunch) and then buy too many cozy winter items at Target, and then feel the sweet relief of knowing that your favorite character is okay.

This week, I felt a little out of focus. A little all over the place. I got things done without planning to, and other things cropped up that I didn't plan either. Basically, it was a week of the unexpected, the unplanned, but not unpleasantly so. I felt out of focus, off kilter, but life was still beautiful. I'm excited for the coming week of holidays and being reunited with people I love. Thinking about that as I go into this week. I like this blog format, because it's a place to catch my thoughts as they come. It's usually formal and polished, but it's also natural.

  -Fran

8/28/15

  On this momentous day, I want to tell you about another day. A day that wasn’t as fun and easy. A day that was hard. It was only a few weeks ago, but it feels like a lifetime because with these people every moment is so full of life that I feel like I’ve lived a thousand years in the past thirty days.

  Sunday, August 9th was the hardest day in a long time. Not since high school graduation have I felt so simultaneously happy, sad, nostalgic, and some other emotion I can’t totally identify. After finishing filming the final episode of OVERDUE (the last episode of the summer), we ate pizza at one of our cast member’s houses and hung out. And when it was time for me to leave, go home, and pack for my vacation, I didn’t want to go. Not because I wanted to stay longer. I was pretty tired and actually wanted to go home. But no, I didn’t want to leave because it felt so final. To leave for a whole week? For the first time in my life I actually felt like I was leaving something behind. Like I had reason to stay. So even though I was ready for a vacation, I wasn’t ready to leave my friends for a week. And that was really hard. 

 When I got in the car accident that (whether I like it or not) led me to this day, the biggest thing I remember was that the guy with whom I got in the accident got out of his car and shrugged at me as if to say, "What the f*ck, man?" And for a long time, that kept me up at night. I would wake up in the morning or in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and just burst into tears because I couldn't understand it. Why would someone, a teacher of all people, treat another human being with such disrespect, such unkindness? Why would he do that? How could he do that? I shed a lot of tears over that one. So as a result, I (whether consciously or not) became kind of a cynic. With that one shrug, I lost my faith in humanity a little bit. But over the past three months, I've regained it in spades. I've always wanted to be a good person. That's one thing the accident did for me. From that moment on, I decided I wanted to be someone who would treat a person with absolute kindness in that situation.

 And maybe I’m wrong, or overreacting, and none of this actually matters. But this just feels really significant. That a group of people would continuously show up, week in and week out, to help me make this thing happen. That two people who I didn't even know until three months ago would spend the past 48 hours working around the clock to make sure our sound was good. That someone who I was only casually acquainted with in May could now be considered one of my best friends. That these people who I barely even knew a year ago could cause me such pain (like cry my eyes out in the car listening to Taylor Swift, pain) in their leaving. This just feels like a really significant thing, a really significant time in my life. I want to mark that. And I just want to be as good to other people as they consistently are to me. That’s all I want to do.

  I hope you check out the first episode of OVERDUE, which will go live on my YouTube channel at 7 pm. If not for me, do it for all of the other people who worked tirelessly on it this summer.

With lots of love & anxiety,

-Fran

A Love Letter To Jenny Han

  Before there was John Green, there was Jenny Han. (Not literally, I'm actually not sure who is older.) I mean, for me. Years before I ever picked up my first John Green book, (Paper Towns, if you were interested) Jenny Han had been teaching me about the ins and outs of adolescence. When I was about 12, I picked up her first book, Shug. It’s been a while since I read it, but I remember it teaching me about all-important first kisses and those irresistible boys next door. And that was when I fell in love with her writing. 

  A few years later my older, bookish, Gilmore Girls loving friend recommended The Summer I Turned Pretty series. I was instantly hooked, and I can remember staying up late into those hot summer nights reading the first two books. Then I waited (not so) patiently for the third, and bought it the second it came out. I can remember going back and forth between Conrad and Jeremiah, and feeling as torn as Belly, even though I had nothing to compare her experience to. That series taught me about first loves and first losses and making your first big mistakes and choices. (Though I will admit, for me it was always going to be Conrad...)

  Then last spring Han's book To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before came out, and everyone in the bookish community was abuzz about it. But I already knew I’d be picking it up, because by this point I was a long-time Jenny Han fangirl. I grabbed it the day it came out, and even though I was 18 when I read it, it still resonated strongly with me. When I read this book, (and its recent sequel P.S. I Still Love You) I finally had real-life boys to compare Lara Jean’s long list of (almost) ex-lovers to. I felt it all more deeply because I had begun to feel more deeply. But this duo-logy contains so many more lessons than just those about boys.

  P.S. I Still Love You touched on important topics like feminism, (and what it really is) slut-shaming and the differences in how men and women are treated in the same situations, even at the high school age. Being 19, I really picked up on those threads, and appreciated that they were woven into a best-selling series for young adults. I'm really glad that Jenny Han's books are so popular, because they are extremely readable, well written, and send such positive messages to young girls. And I'm over the moon that just a few days ago at my job at the library, a 13 year old girl took this book out.

  I feel like with each of Jenny Han's books, she's taught her readers about the next stage of life. The next unknown. I’ve grown up with her stories, though not in the same way that I literally grew up with Harry Potter, to be fair. But as I look back, I see that at the pivotal points in my life, nay, the awkward, in-between points in my life, there was a Jenny Han book by my side that taught me what to do. I think Jenny Han deserves all of her success and more, because her novels are proof that the fun, sweet, and romantic YA genre can also be a vehicle for educating young people. A book can be fun to read and still teach you something valuable.

  So for that, I must say: Jenny Han, I love you. 

 - Fran

P.S.- There's actually going to be a third book, right? RIGHT?!