On the day my sister left for college, I made a few mistakes.
Mistake #1 was putting on makeup. Ironically enough, I'd all but stopped wearing it until this point, because I like how I look without it, it's effort to put on, and I cry too much anyway.
Mistake #2 was bringing up Gilmore Girls. Why, oh why, did I bring up Gilmore Girls?!
Mistake #3 was thinking that this wasn’t going to be a big deal. Because it freaking was.
Let me rewind. My sister and I have a complex relationship, as I think most sisters do. We’ve kind ofsort of gotten along our entire lives, but have never had that cliche sisterly bond some films tell you you should have. (I'm looking at you, Sisters.) But one thing we’ve always had in common was…Gilmore Girls. When we were younger, we used to bathe together, as most little kids do. We all have those embarrassing pictures of us with our siblings in the bath, hair spiked and bubbles all over everything. So we took showers together, and I can remember singing the theme song at the top of our lungs while she stood at the corner of the shower because I always turned the water way too hot. And granted, if we were young enough to still be taking showers together, chances are we were too young to be watching Gilmore Girls. But I was against censorship from a very young age, and therefore did not give a shit. And she followed my lead.
We watched it when we spent the summers home alone together, our little brother forced to go to the babysitter. And we watched it, in full, from the very beginning, starting in November 2014 and lasting through to September 2015. We had never watched the show front to back like that before, and I gotta say, it’s one of my favorite memories with my sister. Through some of the hardest years, and hardest moments in our lives up to that point, we always had Gilmore Girls to come back to. I remember spending the day before Thanksgiving in my bed while a snowstorm raged outside, watching episode after episode. Both of us staying up way too late on a school night (for her) because we had to see what happened with Luke and Lorelei and that crazy cliffhanger. Debating who we preferred— Dean, Jess, Logan? (She’s team Jess, I’m team Rory.) My asking, "One more?" even when we had already been watching for four straight hours. Analyzing who was who… I told her she was Paris, because I’m mean, but she’s really Rory and I’m a definite Lorelei. Even though I'm the older sister, much like Rory, she's always been the one in charge here.
So when I went into her room on Thursday morning before leaving for work, I talked about the only thing I could manage— Gilmore Girls. “I’m not saying we should make a pact not to watch it apart…but I think we should wait and watch it together.” I hesitantly said about the new revival season coming to Netflix this fall. (Okay, that sounded like an ad. But I don't even care because everyone should watch this show and I’m not even sorry.) She nodded her head vigorously in response. I asked her when she’d be home, she said she’ll be here for Thanksgiving. And then something crazy started happening. She started to tear up. Now, let me give you some more backstory. I’ve seen my sister cry about real people and real emotion (we aren’t counting stress from school or Fault in Our Stars related tears) about three times. I can legitimately count them. 1) When I got in my car accident in September of 2013, my sister was still at home. My mom was supposed to drive her to school that morning, but didn’t when she got the phone call from me. So when I got home and was just sitting at the kitchen table sobbing, my sister came over, crying too, and hugged me. (That’s also one of the few times she’s ever voluntarily hugged me.) 2) When our childhood babysitter died, and we went to her funeral. I’m pretty sure she cried. 3) Thursday morning.
I hugged her, and because we aren’t emotional with each other said, “Don’t cry or I’ll throw up on you.” And then, because I’m not a monster, “You’re going to be so fine. I’m not even worried about you, I’m worried about me worrying about you.”
“I know I’m going to be fine, I don’t know why I’m crying.” Then she cried more, and I cried more, and then I said, “F**k you, I did really good makeup!” And then I realized that if I stuck around any longer it would only get worse, so I said, “I have to walk away from you now," and she nodded and I did.
We didn't know why we were crying so much, and I still don't. And I know what you’re thinking, it’s fine, chill out, she didn’t die or anything…But I think it has something to do with this: her toothbrush is gone. Like for good. I keep thinking that I hear her in the morning, or will run into her in the bathroom when I'm getting ready for work and she's getting ready for the weight room. The most crippling realization for me has been-- every time she comes home now, it will be to visit. Even though she probably won't think of it that way for a while, each time she comes home it'll feel a little less like home to her. That's what's effing with me most right now. The spaces we inhabit mean nothing until we inhabit them. And after, they mean even less. They're just shells of memory. I think the hardest part for me is remembering the words to that theme song and realizing that this time, I can't follow where she leads.
-Fran
Last week, as you may know from my mini blog post on Saturday, was rough. Before the weekend was over I drafted this really idiotic blog post in which I avoided the hard stuff and literally at one point said, "It's too much to talk about, so once again I'm going to skirt around the issue." I talked about how change is hard and scary but in the end I make the right choices for me and I need to trust myself more. And that's nice and all, but it's bullshit. I decided a few weeks back that I wasn't going to do that on this blog anymore. And the more I looked at that draft, the more I felt like it was a cop out, and even though writing this realer one is hard, it's more worth it. Because to tell you the truth, I'm uncomfortable and I'm vulnerable and I'm sad and I don't want to explore that sadness. (Who does?!)
But if I don't, what does that say about me? Furthermore, if I don't explore it, will I regret it? Will I have missed something? An opportunity of some sort? A few weeks ago my mentor and I discussed the idea of dwelling a little more, of lingering in the moments as they happen even if they are difficult or vulnerable or awkward. Although that conversation was in reference to my weekly videos, it applies to this as well, so that’s what I’m going to do here.
On Monday a very wise three year old said something that didn't quite hit me until this morning, when I was editing my weekly vlog. He said, "we have to have a house." This was the final statement in a very silly conversation we had, which went a little something like this:
Silas: "What if we smushed the house into jelly?!"
Eli: “Oh no! If we smushed it into jelly?!”
Silas: “Yeah! Then we could play in it!”
Eli: "Well then we wouldn't have a house anymore. Where would you sleep?"
Silas: "...in the JELLY!"
Eli: “I guess that’s true you’d have to…cause that was your house, huh?…You'd get sick of the jelly."
And that, a seven sentence exchange between a 19 year old and a 3 year old, is the best way I have to describe my current situation without getting into all of the gory details. I, for lack of a better term, smushed my house into jelly. And now I'm sleeping in it. And I'm sick of it.
Right now, I’m trying to navigate the vague and blurry differences between house and home. I guess I have a house, but that house is not my home. I was going to say I don't have a home, but that's not true. I have a home with every person who loves me, who looks out for me, even if they aren't necessarily part of my nuclear family. My house has always been a safe space for me. So much so that I have been afraid I'll never leave. But now, I guess that's not so much of an issue. I do want to leave, because every night I returned I felt something I've never felt before upon returning to my own "home": anxiety.
This week I spent my time at a million different places that aren't my house, but could be called home. Coffee shops, Eli's house, Kelsey's house, gardens and parks and restaurants and family camps. So many different places felt like home, but not all of them were easy to get in and out of. An island in the middle of a lake in the Adirondacks, for example, was no picnic. We had to kayak out there, pull our kayaks in, and climb up, dirtying our feet along the way. We had to scale the only rocks available, sharp jagged ones that I cut my knees on. That’s what young adulthood feels like to me right now. Skinned and bruised knees, difficulty at every sharp turn. I don’t know if that’s just something everyone goes through, if everyone needs to feel this pain in order to be motivated to leave home, or if it's just a particular brand of hell reserved especially for me.
I usually like to end these posts on a positive note, with a line that makes everyone else feel okay about my not being okay. But that wouldn’t be very truthful of me today. I’m not feeling all that positive. I’m feeling the sharp jagged edges of a home outgrown digging into my skin. I’m feeling the growing pains, and I’m feeling the grief that goes along with it. But I’m grateful for the not-so-nuclear family I have around me, and the fact that they won’t let me give up.
At the end of this week, following the glory of last, my boyfriend was called away on family business and I had to deal with being away from him after a weekend of being so close to him and my friends. Since I am not very good at coping and rather skilled at escapism, my sister and I decided to go to “the lake” (our family’s lake house in the Finger Lakes). This was our first trip as adult people, going on our own without our parents to a place we’d been a million times before. And it went surprisingly well. If you have a sister, you'll understand that the previous statement is really not an insult, but actually quite generous.
What I learned from this weekend is this: the days are long when you're in control of them, and longer still when you aren't, and when you're without the people you love most. While my days were long and breezy, others' were not so much. I tried to do what I could to enjoy my time, and make theirs better where I could.
And I succeeded. I laid out in the sun and flicked the ants of worry and anxiety and even sadness away. Though, my anxieties are persistent, so time after time they kept crawling back. But instead of focusing on them, I read. I wrote. I went for a walk and listened to my favorite music. I made my grandparents happy by visiting with them for an hour. I continued watching Seinfeld and dreamed. I didn't worry.
As a young person, I hear a lot about how we are “always immersed in our screens” and how we “need to unplug more.” It’s kind of an incessant criticism. But the criticizers don’t ever stop to ask if we want it too. They might be surprised by the answer. This weekend, my sister and I both had the same goal— disconnecting. For her, it is because she is a senior in high school and being connected to the world through her phone means crazy amounts of stress pouring in at every turn— emails, reminders, tasks, more and more things she has to do at the so called “best time in her life.” For me, I wanted to escape for many of the same reasons. If I can’t connect to email, I can’t be reminded of all the things I’m not doing. Of all the time I’m wasting. And if I’m not connected, and instead have a glorious nature getaway in front of me, I also can’t focus on missing the person I love so much. I think we young people are always so connected to our "screens" nowadays for a multitude of complex reasons. Sure, we do engage socially there, but that’s not even the tip of the iceberg. They help us stay organized, keep on task, and it’s basically the nature of the job market nowadays. If you aren’t easily contactable, you aren’t getting the job. I think older generations fail to see that the screens we seem to love so much are also our worst enemies, and as difficult to extract ourselves from as X-Men-like wings on our backs. It's not that we don't want to put the "screens" down. It's that we can't rationalize disconnecting from so many opportunities, tasks, and emails that might get us somewhere in the world.
Nevertheless, disconnecting was as good for me as it was for my sister, and just as necessary. To do nothing is an enormous task, especially for two "overachievers" such as ourselves. We talked about how when you wake up at 8 am with the whole day ahead of you, at 1 pm you are amazed at how seemingly little time has passed. I’m quite familiar with the feeling of— the day is already half over, and I haven’t done nearly as much as I planned! But this weekend, the feeling was more like: The day isn’t even half over, and we’ve already done all the nothing we could ever imagine with it! In my day to day life, the hours run screaming by me, ignorant and indifferent to my desperate attempts to catch them. So I don't know if the lake is magic or something, but this weekend I made time my bitch.
Though not technically the fourth week in this series, it's my fourth week of making this style of blog post. Sometimes the weeks get away from you, which is why I'm trying to make the effort to work on this each day of the week, which ensures the mindfulness I'm after.
Monday: Treating yourself to a self-love day. Starting the day with a bath, writing some essays, and taking a long walk that takes you both to where you've been and where you are. It's a weird, metaphorical day.
Tuesday: The day when you breathe a sigh of relief at all of the "FINALLY"'s coming your way. FINALLY finding the perfect Christmas presents for the people in your life who deserve it so much. FINALLY painting again, even if it's something small, after close to a year of not picking up a brush. FINALLY seeing the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them trailer, after two years of eagerly anticipating the Eddie Redmayne led return to the Wizarding World you've loved your whole life. FINALLY working on that essay you said you'd start all day. Finally, finally, finally.
Wednesday: Tackling huge problems that feel like the end of the world, and realizing the people that validate and support you most aren't necessarily the people you'd expect.
Thursday: Crushing it. Accomplishing all of the things you put off, then having a miniature Star Wars re-watch and deciding you love Han Solo (among others).
Friday: To grandmother's house we go. Nearly freezing to death taking pictures by a lake you've loved your whole life, with someone who you've just begun to love. Realizing that it doesn't take much to make certain people happy, but what matters is that you choose to do it.
Saturday: Finally feeling useful and watching your friends' business grow and thrive in front of your eyes. Then watching the person you love geek the hell out over Star Wars, and loving it because of how much you love him.
Sunday: Having hard conversations, watching an iconic Diane Keaton movie, and correctly guessing the writer of said movie. (Nancy Meyers for the win.)
It's fascinating to me how easily stressful things can become fun and beautiful when you're with the right people. I used to dread trips to see extended family. But Friday I had the best time I've ever had at my grandparent's house. Maybe it's that I've grown up, and maybe it's because of who I was with, and maybe it's both. Ordinarily, I would be horrified by a movie theater packed with overly excited nerds. Saturday, it wasn't at all scary. It was beautiful and fun and light and full of giddy happiness. This week I realized something I've suspected for a while: people are the difference.
So for the past two months, I’ve spent practically all my time at work. Well, my place of work. Not only do I typically work at the library Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, but I have also been picking up shifts as my co-workers have taken their summer vacations. But then I've spent every OTHER spare moment I've had at the library as well. For filming. Monday and Wednesday nights, when I don't usually work, we've been there filming. Friday nights, Saturdays, and Sundays, we've been there filming. And even though this was very much of my own free will, and most of the time it has been SO MUCH fun, I was still more than eager to get away this past weekend. We went to my family’s lake house in the Finger Lakes, and I was so ready to completely disconnect. With no internet, no wi-fi, and barely any service to speak of, this was an opportunity to get back in touch with myself. To get in touch with nature. To reconnect with my family. To just be. And boy was that… uh, Overdue. (Excuse the pun. I am trash.)
After so many weeks in a row being consumed by schedules, scripts, and yes, anxiety, it was an extremely foreign yet delightful feeling to lay my head down on the pillow Friday night and realize I had nothing to do, think of, or worry about for the rest of the weekend. It was a much appreciated feeling. On Saturday I refused to get dressed aside from putting on a pair of "shorteralls" over my bathing suit. I swam in the lake, read on the dock, ate too much ice cream and watched Parks & Recreation in my back bedroom with the windows open and the fan on high. We played cards, roasted marshmallows over the fire, and I didn't shower for three days. Basically, it was a wonderful and much needed escape. I returned home on Sunday night feeling mildly refreshed but like I could have gladly stayed a few days longer. You can find my lake vlog here! They were my favorite videos to make last summer, and I had so much fun taking footage and putting it together this time around as well. Going into this new week, I'm excited to finally film the final episode of OVERDUE before I depart for my real vacation next week. This mini-vacation was just a taste of the relaxation I'll get to experience next week. And while I can't wait, I know I have some work to do before then. So here's to getting shit done! -Fran
