Last Week #30 | Here Comes the (Love) Anxiety

 So this week I discovered that I am actually capable of what my therapist told me to try last week. Which was: take the pressure off yourself to get so much done, and see if it all still gets done anyway. This should have been a no-brainer for me. Of COURSE it will still get done! I should have thought. I didn’t. It was so hard for me to let go of the worry and anxiety this week, and trust that it would still get done in the end. But you know what? It DID. I realized that worrying in my down time doesn’t make the work get done any faster, it only makes me more exhausted by the time I have time to work. So I can’t do work. So, in essence, worrying about being productive makes me LESS productive. And I know what you might be thinking: But Fran, duh! Worrying gets you nowhere. Just relax and chill out! And to that I would say: HA. Because sure, I learned a valuable lesson about behavioral tricks this week. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still have anxiety. Anxiety means that all of my efforts are just that— efforts. Sure, they can help to rewire my brain and combat the negativity up there, but in the end, my anxiety is still gonna do what it wants to do sometimes. 

With anxiety, if it’s not one thing it’s another. Sure, I got a lot of work done this week. I made progress on my projects for my drawing class, and felt good about the other work I am doing. But I still feel bad and guilty and anxious about not being a better friend this week, sometimes, all the time. But the difference is, I now know that worrying about it isn’t going to change anything. That doesn’t mean I don’t still worry. This kind of ingrained behavior doesn’t go away overnight. But I now have a little voice in the back of my head telling me to relax, it’s okay, it’ll all be fine.

Yoga this week taught me just as much. As I stretched and twisted my body, and felt the pain that comes with not doing yoga for a while, I realized that this pain so obviously symbolizes life. You feel the pain, but it will pass. And learning that fact (“it will pass”) is one of the most valuable lessons, and something that will get you through both yoga and life. The thing is, when I feel pain my brain is like “UUUUUM bitch you are gonna die if you don’t end this right now.” So I panic and stop whatever I’m doing that’s causing me pain instead of working, pushing, breathing through it. I was afraid I was going to do that with Eli, with this job, with my apartment. But I haven’t, and my life is so much better, so much more as a result. 

Full disclosure, I still freaked out a little bit this week too. (You win some and you lose some.) Long story short, I watched my favorite movie (Amelie), and wigged out about the fact that I was nostalgic for her lost-ness, for her alone-ness. I worried that my wanting alone-ness meant I no longer loved Eli, and then my brain got out of control. It went haywire. I quite literally pushed Eli away, had a total meltdown, cried myself to sleep, woke up and cried some more. Then I sent him a lengthy, completely insane message that was full of my fear and anxiety and sadness. To which he replied, “Ok Fran.. you can do whatever you need to and I will understand- go see your mom, just lay there alone for today, go drive by yourself, idk whatever you need.  But all I can say / all I know is this:

I love you, I love coming home to you, I love when you come home to me, I love "seeing the world" with YOU, I *love when we figure out an argument and solve the problem together and it's all 100% ok, I love being with you.” 

Yeah. I f*cking know. He’s a goddamn unicorn. Always has been, always will be. Another thing my therapist recommended last week was composed of two simple words. “Trust. Eli.” Which is admittedly hard for me, despite the fact that he’s wonderful, because I am hard-wired to believe that I am the only one who can (and should) fix my problems. I’m the only one who will have the right solution. That, my friends, is called a control freak. I am one. But the difference now is, I’m trying not to be. 

Finally, before and after all this learning, I had a breakthrough. I realized on Tuesday that the reason I've felt unhappy, unfulfilled, and like I haven't been taking care of myself, is that I haven't been doing creative things for me. If you don't know, that's an enormous part of my personality. I'm the kind of person who's always doing a lot. That's just how I work. But lately, my time has been not-so-equally split between: work, schoolwork, and time with Eli and friends. Let me put this plainly: I HAVE NOT BEEN WRITING. I have not been CREATING. That's like...Beyonce not working on an album. It's just not good for anyone involved. So in a crazy leap of faith, I joined NaNoWriMo at the last second. Let me be clear: I'm not doing NaNoWriMo as it is usually done. I'm not writing 50,000 words and striving for 1,667 per day. But I've made it a priority to work on my in-progress novel, and give it the time, energy, and thought it deserves. Because not working on it has made me feel worse than the effort of finding time for it has. Another thing: Eli and I discovered that we like to read together. I think the problem I've been having is that the past year of our relationship has been so environmentally rocky. By that I mean, we've never known when we would see each other next, or if we were able to: where we would even spend time together. Now, knowing that we always have a place to come home to and relax and be together is so relieving, we almost don't know what to do with it. It's going to take us some time to get used to this. To relax, and realize that we have all the time in the world. This week, we tried that. We laid on my bed and he listened to an audiobook while I read The Walking Dead. And it was amazing! Uncovering this new element of our relationship, discovering that we can want to be together all the time, but that doesn't mean we have to talk or really even engage with each other the whole time. We can just sit next to each other and READ. What a freaking revelation. 

I know this blog post probably isn't perfect. But I'm trying to let go of the need for perfection. I'm trying to sink into the feeling that "it will pass." All of it. The bad, and the good. It will pass, and my challenge is to remain present and here through it all.

-Fran

Last Week #27 | Couraging

Okay, I don't know about you, but I often get this feeling. It's usually when something really cool is about to happen, and I'm excited for it, but then my anxiety chimes in and says "but what if it sucks though? What if the world ends because you decided to do this probably great but also maybe catastrophic thing? We should just not do it. Wouldn't want to risk it." 

I felt it before OVERDUE. It almost choked me, this feeling. This fear of not being good enough almost kept me from even trying. I felt it when I first started dating Eli. Not many people know this, but I almost broke up with him like the first week we were dating. I sort of tried to. I got really sad and was like "what if I’m mean to you?! I won't be good enough. Let's just not." And he was like, “Well no, you already are good enough and I don't even care if you're nice to me because I like you too much." (These are not his exact words. I don’t remember what he said. But this is the general idea.) And here we are. I am sometimes mean to him, I am sometimes not good enough to him. But we learn, and it's a wonderful, happy learning curve, so I’m grateful I didn't give up before it started.

I have that feeling again, now. Friday night I moved into my first apartment. This marks the first time I've ever left home. I'm a part time student, a full time employee, and I'm teaching a class as well. And now I've just moved out. (Or in, depending on your perspective.) At times, this all feels like too much. In fact, I'm almost positive this is all too much. But I'm doing it. And I'm trying to choke, gag,  fight and silence that asshole in my head telling me to give up already. 

On Wednesday, I taught the first in a four week children's film class at a local library. It was a little overwhelming, as anything involving ten year olds is, but as I listened to twelve ten year olds all try to tell me their thoughts at once, and one particular ten year old tell me, "I have too much up here to explain it all" and see him fluff his hair like a mad professor, I realized. These kids, this behavior this kid described, this is what the inside of my brain sometimes looks like. Sixteen screaming ten year olds all shrieking to be heard first, so you literally cannot focus on anyone or anything. 

My brain looks like this today, because Eli (and Kelsey's boyfriend Sam) just left this morning for a weeklong trip to Colombia. The freaking country. COLOMBIA. It's an incredible opportunity for them both, and for Peaks Coffee Company, and I would never want Eli not to have gone, but at the same time, it's freaking hard. It's hard because he's going to be however many miles away, in a place with limited wifi, for seven days straight. And I think I would be okay with that, if this wasn't also my first week living in my new place. In a completely new situation. I have to form new routines, patterns, etc, while balancing the old ones, all on my own. I tell him everything. Every stupid little problem that arises in my day, in my life, he helps me with. Even if he has no advice, he helps me with it all just by virtue of my being able to tell him about it. And I know I have other people. And I'll be okay. But it definitely, uh, sucks. 

Earlier last week, as I was nearly drowning in how overwhelmed I was, I stumbled upon this quote by Brene Brown, someone who I've been told to familiarize myself with a million times, and haven't until now. She said, "You get [courage] by courageous acts. It's like you learn to swim by swimming. You learn courage by couraging." I'm really hoping she's right. So I'm going to be courageous this week, and much like Harry Potter, hope the sorting hat was right when it put me into Gryffindor. 

-Fran

Last Week #24 | Waiting for Waffles

When you hear the words "there's a 45 minute wait for waffles,"at 11:30 am on a Sunday when you haven't eaten anything yet, it doesn't really inspire courage. Or patience.

This week was a lot of valley, with Peaks in sight. I got a lot of news-- the apartment will be getting brand new cabinets, you have 5 assignments due October 3rd, your birthday is next week, and oh yeah, the official move-in date is October 1st. By Saturday, I was a hurricane of emotions. As I had to assure Eli, it wasn't anyone's fault. It just happened, and suddenly I was too overwhelmed to even spend time with him. Figuring out the logistics of where we were going to go was too much, so I sent him home, felt guilty, laid in my bed, watched my favorite movie, and cried. 

There's been so much happening lately, I think it all just caught up to me, and I couldn't even give love to the person I love the most, because I hadn't given enough love to me.

My birthday is tomorrow, and I don't feel ready for my it. I don't ever, really. I mean, who feels ready to face the fact that another year has gone by and what have they done with it and also they're one year closer to death?! Certainly not me. But I'm also not ready for the disappointment. I mean, really. Who decided it was a good idea for everyone to have one specific day each year that they can pin all their idyllic birthday hopes and dreams on? It's practically guaranteed to be a letdown. And it's, again, not anyone's fault. It's the system's fault. (F*ck the system, man.) Each year, my birthday feels a lot like waiting 45 minutes for waffles. Exasperating, and at the end someone usually does something wrong, like gives you vanilla instead of chocolate ice cream on top. Listen, this isn't meant to be some white girl's first-world-problems post about how she hates her birthday because she never got a pony. (Truth be told, I never wanted a pony. My biggest dream was to get a portable DVD player with the Gilmore Girls boxed set and be left alone to watch it in my room.) No, maybe I just don't know how to have a good birthday.

Case in point: last weekend, I had an early birthday celebration with Eli's family, and I was holding back tears the entire time. Not because it wasn’t nice, but because it was, and I didn't know how to deal with it. I thought a lot about how a person becomes who they are. Suddenly, without knowing it, these random people just understand your aesthetic and you become known for a purple flower and brownie pie. I still don’t understand family, because mine is not what I ever expected, or, if we’re being honest, what I hoped for. It’s more, and it’s less. It’s disappointing and it’s more than I’d ever imagined. So I don't know what to expect from tomorrow, but I've decided not to make a big deal of it. Last year, the 19th was way better than the 20th. My friends threw a party for me, and as I drove home in the rain with the boy I really, really liked in the passenger seat, I started to cry because it had been too perfect. 

"So maybe I don't want the perfect birthday, because I probably wouldn't be able to handle it anyway." I think to myself negatively as I write this at 8:50 on a Monday morning. And then I realize that is exactly what my astrologer was talking about when she said I needed to let go, and open my heart and deal with Chiron and shit. Maybe I need to let go of the bad birthday archetype I have in my head, and open myself up to it being whatever it's gonna be. Okay, that was a more positive ending, right? 

 -Fran

Last Week #23 | Act Your Age

 Since I didn’t write a blog post last week, I am going to write a little about both two weeks ago, and this past week. Between last week and this week, a weekend existed. A glorious, perfect, amazing three day weekend. (For the first time in my life, I understand why Labor Day exists.) Eli and I went to my family’s lake house in the finger lakes, because I had only been there once all summer and decided this was probably my last chance, before school and work and creative business overtook me and my precious schedule. So we went, and spent time with my cousins, who were also there. 

During the first evening’s dinner, talking to my cousin who is precisely my age and also still in college, I was telling her everything I do with my time. (I’m a talker.) 

At the end of it, she looked astounded. 

"You're doing so much!" She said.

"What do you mean?" I replied.

"You're doing so many things that you're passionate about!"

I was confused. Wasn't that the point? Sure, you probably have to get a 9-5 to survive, preferably in something that you don't hate, but that doesn’t mean you should then spend the rest of your precious time bemoaning the fact that you don't have any time to do what you love. Use that precious little time to DO WHAT YOU LOVE. I get up early and do those things, or use that time to do things that are good for me. Then I go to work, and try to put myself into it. And then I come home, and I try to love others. My boyfriend, my friends, myself. I do some fun things, but mainly deliberately unproductive things. And that's it. That's all I do. That's all we can do. 

Since my birthday is nigh, I’ve been thinking a lot about age. And for some reason, that old adage keeps fluttering back into my head. “Act your age.” And I hate that adage. What even is age? As one of the books that always sat on my mother’s kitchen shelf read, “Age is just a number.” So I don’t get how I can act it. When you’re a young person, people tell you to do this a lot. And it confuses me. Because, how the hell do I act 21? Do I drink? And therefore perpetuate stereotypes about my generation? Or do I work really hard, just so they’ll say that I’m the exception? Is there a way to act your age without stereotyping yourself? I’m afraid I don’t know the answer. Right now I’m nearly 21, I have a full time job and I’m a part-time student. I’m a full time girlfriend and best friend and creator. And I’m also a full-time Fran. I might be young, I feel really old. I hate that just because I haven’t lived 47 years, I’m considered less. I wish that when people said “act your age” they didn’t mean, “Act the age I wish you still were.” It seems that many people are confused by young people if they don’t fit in to a box they can understand. So they say "act your age" but they mean, “Act a different way so I can make sense of you.” I’m 21, I have a full time job, I’m a student, I’m in love, and I’m creative and logical and practical and impractical and stupid and senseless and naive and wise beyond my years. 

I guess what I'm saying is, I don't want to be known for, and judged by, my age. I want to be known for my personality, or writing, or purple hair, or art, or how hard I work, or my heart. And maybe I am. This weekend, I babysat for a family I've been watching for years. (About 6, to be exact.) 

I was telling them about my job, and the mom said, "You're working full time and still doing school?!" She seemed taken aback, like she couldn't believe it. I sighed and moaned about how yes, I was crazy enough to be doing that (because to be honest it was almost 1 am and I was half asleep and freaking moody), but in the back of my head I was thinking, "Dude. Come on. I have a very delicate balance going on here. Don't make me question how in the hell I'm doing this. If I think about it too hard, it'll all come crumbling down."  But the next day, in talking to one of my good friends, she said, "It's because you're an organizational queen. That's how." Essentially telling me to never question or doubt myself. And that's what I mean. I want to be known for who I am, not for my age, not for how much I do. As one of my favorite astrologers once said, "You're a human being, not a human doing." I'm trying to remember that in this stressful time, this age of the rat race, this season of my life. 

-Fran

Last Week #22 | Ron Swanson Officiated Our Wedding

 Last week, Nick Offerman (AKA Ron Swanson from Parks & Recreation) officiated my and Eli's wedding. Before I get into the (absolutely incredible) details, first, let me just tell you why this is significant.

1. I often jokingly call the Parks & Recreation theme song my antidepressant, because for a few dark months in early 2014, it pretty much was. I had watched the show when it first aired, but lost track of it during high school. Post-high school, however, during a very depressing winter when I had nothing else to do, I revisited it and watched three seasons in about a month. From that point on, the show was my drug of choice.

2. When Eli and I first started talking, it was via text, and we were cripplingly awkward with each other, I think because neither of us had ever been this interested in and attracted to another person before. So we started giving each other compliments in the only nerdy way we could think of to tell each other we wanted to kiss each other’s faces. We started Ann Perkins complimenting each other. If you're unfamiliar, it looks a little something like this: 

3. One night, we both took quizzes to see which Parks & Recreation characters we were. I got Leslie, and he got Ben. Then, I took another quiz. “Which Parks & Rec character would be ‘Ya Boo’?” I got Ben, and I sent it to him with the smirk emoji. That was flirting to us.

4. When we finally said I love you, Eli said it the normal way, but I said, “I love you and I like you.” Not because I wanted to be like Ben and Leslie, (even though I definitely do), but because that was how I felt. Love and like were two different things in my mind, and I felt both. Later, Eli would put it perfectly: “I like you to the point of loving you without losing any of the liking you.” 

Basically, Parks & Recreation is super freaking important to our relationship, and to us as individuals. I take waffles seriously. And on Wednesday night, Ron Swanson officiated our wedding. We went to Nick Offerman & Megan Mullally's Summer of 69 Show (no apostrophe) and were just enjoying the beautiful weirdness that was the show when they asked for a volunteer couple from the audience. The next thing I knew Eli was raising his huge arms and we were being beckoned onstage by two of our favorite actors. The rest is kind of a blur, but I shook Nick Offerman's hand and he complimented my lavender hair and I hugged Megan Mullally and Nick kept talking about Eli's man bun and we played a compatibility game where we were challenged to answer questions in precisely the same way...and we pretty much crushed it. Not to brag, but we answered all but one question the same way, all while standing in the presence of two people we routinely watch on Netflix while cuddling. Then Nick Offerman stood between us and asked us one final question... "Do you, Eli, take Fran to be your lawfully wedded wife..." He then presented us with rings and that is how I got married onstage to my absolute favorite person by Ron freakin' Swanson.

The funny thing about this whole story is, I've recently been plagued by a question that this experience completely put to rest. The question is this-- when you're happy, can you experience as much true joy in new shows and music and art and life experiences as when you are not? Is there some inherent connection that you make with culture when you're lonely and sad that you don't make when you're satisfied? I was thinking about the connection I made to Parks & Recreation when I was depressed, and worrying that I'd never find such happiness in another show or movie again, because I'd already found it in a person. And I know, any logical, rational person would say-- but Fran, this is so much better! You've made a connection with a real, tangible human who can register your love and give love in return! But you don't understand. My connection with music and stories and television shows is what makes me, me. 

The notion that somehow those connections wouldn't be as strong in light of my finding Eli is completely terrifying to me. I think these fears can honestly be linked to an experience I had a few weeks ago. On a sleepy Monday morning recently, I was watching a terrible young adult reality show on YouTube to wake myself up, as you do, and everyone was lamenting the fact that summer is almost over. And for the first time in my life, I realized that the end of summer doesn't mean everything sucks again. Everything in my life will pretty much stay the same, no matter the season. But then of course I started worrying that normalcy is bad and regularity equals stagnation, lack of inspiration, boredom and indifference.

Now I realize that's so not true. Of course not. Now, I get the privilege of experiencing new shows and extraordinary life experiences with someone who loves them and me just as much. Last week I finally realized that just because I have a big girl job that doesn't mean I or my life is anything close to boring. Because I have someone in my life who is willing to seek out the weird and extraordinary with me. 

-Fran

Last Week #21 | We Have a Guest Room Now

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 of sort 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 #20 | I Got Lost in the Woods and All I Got Were These Lame Cliches

Disclaimer: This blog post is about to be really really real. 

On Monday of this past week, I had my first day at a brand new job. Granted, it's just a different library job (it's not like I changed careers) but it was one hell of an adjustment nonetheless. I'm not going to sugar coat it. On days one and two, I was overwhelmed as hell. To put it in culturally relevant terms, I felt like Eilis at the beginning of Brooklyn. I walked out the doors at the end of my shifts the first two days, sat down in my car and promptly burst into tears, soaking Eli through with my worries and fears and doubts. 

This library is simply different. The vibe is different, and the job I'm working is just MORE. It's a definite step up in terms of hours and workload. There's a much more serious tone. Which is absolutely fine, professionalism is great, but at 20 and 7/8ths years old, it's a little overwhelming. I'm used to wearing whatever I want and not having to worry about what will happen if I get a tattoo one day. I'm used to making jokes and showing off what I like to call my "trash youth interior" while also still being professional and doing my job. So the first two days, when I was getting oriented and didn't really get to talk to anyone, I was drowning. And I find that really interesting, because I always thought I didn't like people. But on day 4, when I got to do more of what I'll be doing every day-- sitting behind the desk and interacting with patrons, I was happy. Which was mind blowing to me. I like people?! I thought. My whole life is a lie! 

Another challenging aspect of this week was filming. As you may know, I'm working on my second short film of the summer (but my 4th overall project). Once again, we had limited time to get it done-- basically Friday was all we had. So we ventured back out into the woods at around 6 pm, with storm clouds looming ominously over our heads. We got the shots, we got the shots, we had fun, blah blah blah. It started to get dark, and we still had a few shots left and increasingly limited time, so we powered through. But then, in the wake of the excitement of getting the shot, reality settled back over us-- in the forms of darkness, fog, and thunder. 

I won't say we got lost, because that would be an insult to Eli's navigating skills. But we did get a little... disoriented and eventually realized that instead of taking the long way back (which would lead us to the water bottles and other supplies we had left behind while the daylight still lingered), it was smarter to take a shortcut, because our ever-anxious director was freaking out a little bit. This turned out to be a very muddy, mucky, messy and sharp shortcut. I hated it. But afterwards, lying in the safety of my bed in borrowed sweatpants while my white shorts that I stupidly wore soaked in a bucket in the bathroom, I looked over the shots I got and I realized two significant things. 

1. It was worth it. Even though I knew that behind the shots where the camera movement was glorious were the oozing scratches on my legs now covered in Neosporin, they were so worth the blood, sweat, and tears.
2. And 2, and this relates to my post last week, I really love filmmaking. Because even though it is sometimes a perfect recipe for stress, anxiety, and occasional pain, everything else pales in comparison.

So I guess if I were to try to connect these two topics somehow, I'd say this. When I was hemming and hawing over whether or not to even apply for this new job, my brilliant and wise mentor Yvonne said something that stuck with me. She said, "There's really no such thing as wrong choice.  It's all just experience and whether it's awesome or not so awesome, we learn what we need to learn and adjust and go forward and look forward to the next things. Enjoy the in between-ness, if you can." When I was lost in the woods, I thought I had made the worst choice in the world. On day 1, I questioned whether I had made a mistake. But sitting here, on the morning of day 5, I'm realizing that she's right. It's all just experience. And for better or worse, we're going to get lost in the muddy woods sometimes, but hopefully in the end we can sit on our beds and realize it was worth it. 

That was so cliche, I think I need to take another shower. 

-Fran

Last Week #19 | Filmmaking, Why Do I Love You?

 There's nothing like having a week where you are literally able to accomplish nothing-- due to your body's complete inability to do anything-- to make you entirely rethink your approach to productivity. This week, only the basics happened. On Monday I got my blog/vlog posted. Then I lurched through the days to follow, dragged down by sickness and expectations of me. But I still got done what was absolutely necessary. Uploaded the thing. Emailed that person. 

And suddenly, being productive took on new meaning. It started to mean doing what made me happy. Going out for an hour to catch Pokemon, just so I wouldn't feel like crap for doing absolutely nothing at all the rest of the day. Eating dinner with friends. Reading. FaceTiming friends in California. I started to let my body tell me what it was capable of, and listen to it. Being dragged down to nothing makes you have an appreciation for mobility, energy. When I was at my worst, I sobbed on FaceTime to Eli about how I was afraid I wouldn't get better before my first day at work. 

But now, productivity is back to normal and I'm starting to feel like I need to catch up on all that I missed. Make up for the time I "wasted" while I was sick. And I don't know what to do about that. I'm afraid that I'm starting to slip back into old ways of being, where nothing is ever enough for me and I never feel fulfilled. And aside from Pinning article after article about self-care and being a morning person, I don't know how to tackle this. 

But what I'm really wondering going into this new week is-- How do you decide if you love something or hate something? I spent the latter half of this past week deep in the pre-production and filming process of my new short film. And it's always a strange feeling, because when I'm in it I really have no idea if I love or hate making short films. I'm so eaten up with stress and anxiety right now, but I know when the final product comes out I'll say that it was such a learning experience and I'm so glad I did it. So this is sort of a call-out post. Fran, which is it? I have no idea. I'm sure the people around me don't know either, because every other day I'm having a mental breakdown and crying and getting headaches and Eli has to calm me down and tell me it's all going to be fine and get done in the end.

Here's all I know now: 1) I love writing things, and watching the things I write come to life. 2) I'm a control freak, so I really do need to be in charge of those creative evolutions in order to feel fulfilled. 3) I'm really good at scheduling and organizing. 4) Scheduling and organizing stresses me the eff out. 5) Despite all of the ups and downs and headaches in between (and the fact that I can never make things run as smoothly as my brain would like), I love making films. And it sort of goes against my better nature, because I love when things are easy and simple and come together perfectly, which filmmaking absolutely is not. From my experience, filmmaking, as much as you may try to give it some order, is chaos. It is ugly and messy and dirty and time consuming and exasperating. But for some reason, I can't stop doing it. Maybe this is growth?

-Fran

Last Week #17 | The Overgrowth

 I know, I know. I've already written a blog post on growing recently, but it seems to be the most prevalent thing in my life right now. This week I was faced with the very harsh reality of outgrowing things. Not only did I have to face facts— I haven’t bought summer shorts in about 2 years and, well, most of my things just didn’t fit right anymore. But also, a lot of other things in my life aren’t fitting right anymore. My childhood bedroom, for example. The idea of forced family vacations. My anxiety, although I haven't quite figured out how to shed that one. Lastly, and most surprisingly, my job at the Minoa library.

In order for you to understand how huge that last one is, I have to give you a bit of backstory. I started at the library in January of 2014, just a few months after getting in a car accident that left me hopelessly depressed on our living room couch, not wanting to go anywhere, do anything, or see anyone. I got the job as a means of shutting up the people in my family wondering what the hell I was doing-- why I wasn't actively pursuing school, why I was still "letting" the accident effect me. If I have a job, I thought, they'll shut the hell up. Since then, the library has become something of a security blanket for me. Throughout all the ups and downs of choosing to do or not to do school, it's been there as my backup. I'm working, I said. But somewhere along the line the library became the stable job I did in the off hours of the rest of my life. I started going places, meeting people, and doing things. 

In my time at the library I: 

Wrote, filmed, acted in, and released a short film. 

Wrote, filmed, edited, and acted in a web series about the library, with the help of the most amazing cast and crew.

Met amazing new friends who are the creative squad I've always dreamed of.

Figured out who I am, and how to show that to people.

Officially started classes at a college that defies all my expectations of how nightmarish college is-- a place that appreciates and accommodates the type of student I am, and enables me to learn in whatever way works best for me.

Met a boy, and began my first real relationship.

I'm so sad to leave this library because, as I tried to convey in my web series, so much life has happened there. I was depressed, I was happy, I made friends, I had existential crises and mental breakdowns, I was sweetly and disgustingly in love. But for better or worse, I've outgrown it. It's a security blanket that I know I need to leave in order for anything to change, for anything to move forward in my life. And since I don't want to be the kind of person who just complains about things being bad and never makes the hard decision to change anything, I'm leaving. I start my new job at a bigger library on August 8th, and I'm utterly terrified, but hopeful that it will permit me to move forward.

But outgrowth doesn’t have to mean terrible things. It can be good. Outgrowing your fear, for example. That hasn’t quite happened for me yet, but I’m watching the people I love do it. So instead of calling it "outgrowing" I want to call this period in my life "overgrowing." Meaning I've grown past the expectations, the situations, and the life I’ve lived for so long. I feel like so many of us are overgrowing the lives we are in right now. We’re overgrowing our current situations, like sprawling plants out of their pots. And that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It doesn’t have to be taboo. We can all just be due for new pots- something we can grow into, something we can build a future on. I see and feel this overgrowth in many of my friends right now, and I’m hoping these next few months mark drastic change— where we demand the right sized pot and fresh soil from which to grow larger, stronger, and brighter.

 -Fran

Last Week #15 | Whiplash (And Not the Fun Kind With J.K. Simmons)

 This week was another difficult one. I felt extremely hopeless, helpless, and desperately sad. And the only thing worse than feeling that way is feeling that way and not knowing how to describe it, or tell loved ones about it. I was crippled by it. Sure, I got out of bed. Sure, I still went to work and did things here and there, but my heart wasn’t completely in it. And people noticed. I didn’t seem like myself, they said. I seemed defeated. I was unproductive, and unmotivated to change. But that wasn’t really necessary, because as it turns out the only solution was to wait it out. Getting through the week, as much as I hate the notion of that, was all I could do. 

Something that Eli said to me a lot this week was, "Things are getting done. Progress is being made. Steps are being taken to get things back on track." But for some reason (well, not some reason...I know the reason. It's because I'm me) I couldn't accept that. "Little steps aren't big enough for me," I said. "I'm a do-it-all-in-one-day kind of girl. I get half done in the morning and the other half done at night." But in the end, he was right. In the middle of the week, those little bits of progress, those picked up and dropped strings of hope didn't feel like enough. They felt half finished, half baked, and entirely infuriating. But now, sitting here on Monday, I'm starting to see how the strings are beginning to weave themselves back together again. It's not a pretty weaving by any means, but at least it's something.

After the switch, however, comes a different issue. How do you go from being so sad to being happy, and hopeful? Like…after these fourteen days of purgatory, I basically have no idea how to be happy again. Things are on the mend, but I don’t know how to adjust to it. After so long of being so sad, I can’t just switch on a dime. I don't have the answer to this problem right now, but rest assured that I am actively pursuing it. Trying everything in every "self care" article I read-- from putting a fresh vase of flowers in my room, to doing yoga, to watching good movies about a guy who gets trapped on Mars but somehow still remains hopeful, and allowing myself to be a ridiculous child again and play Pokemon Go (I hate myself for this). 

Nevertheless, I am, understandably so, feeling a little whiplash from things changing so fast. (And not the fun kind of whiplash with J.K. Simmons where you leave the movie feeling inspired to become a drummer.) Today I have an interview for a new, but not so different, job. Tomorrow, who knows. For the first time in my life I have no idea where I will be living or working three months from now. And that thought is absolutely paralyzing to me. I'm the kind of person who is so terrified of change that I will purposely not put myself in the way of new opportunities and possibilities because I'm afraid they will end badly. I'll be terrible at it, I won't be able to handle it, it will destroy everything. These are all excuses I've made over the years. But you know what, as much as I am terrified, I still always do it. I always sit in that terror and fear and anxiety, drown myself in it, and then go do it anyway. Because (and I'm notorious for this) I don't really listen to what others say to me. "Don't get that haircut." Pssh, did it anyway. "Don't wear that outfit." HA. For better or for worse, I haven't listened to that since the start. "Don't become a liberal arts major, do something practical with your life!" Yeah, I ignored the hell out of that one. So the question I need to ask myself is this-- why, if you don't listen to anyone else who questions your actions, do you listen to the little a**hole in your head spewing self-doubt? How is she any different from the person who criticized you for not going to college at the beginning? Answer- she's not. So ignore her. Drown her out with Leslie Knope complimenting you like you're the world's greatest human woman (because you are) and get over her. 

 -Fran

Last Week #14 | Growing Pains

 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. 

-Fran

Last Week #13 | Roots & Branches

This weekend, I spent three days in the Adirondacks at the Great Camp Sagamore Roots & Branches Music Workshop. (You can learn more about it here.) I’ve never been more nervous than I was the night before and day of our departure. My boyfriend Eli was to spend the weekend at the camp, learning and doing music things, while I was tasked with documenting the weekend and making a video at the end of it. I think it’s safe to say we were both a little terrified. Him, because he wasn’t (and hasn’t been) sure of how he feels about music lately. I in turn felt bad for forcing him into it, and I felt nervous because of the endless marquee of what ifs scrolling through my mind. What if people think I’m weird for lurking around with a camera? What if people think we’re that weird couple that are too attached and can't ever spend a moment apart?  What if I have a panic attack? What if I don’t make them a great, or even good, video? What if I feel uncomfortable? 

 I’ve been on three very different types of trips over the past month. The first was Philadelphia, where four of us were constantly together, doing activities that we chose, facing the days full of bright sunlight and the city and loud, boisterous, college-like activity. The second was the lake with my sister. This is practically the same thing as being at home, except the two of us had to learn how to live in harmony without our electronic devices (and significant other) as a buffer. The challenges were small, and the trip was serene. The last was this trip to the Adirondacks. I think it falls somewhere between Philadelphia and the lake on my scale of anxiety. It wasn’t as action packed as Philly, or as serene as the lake (as no place but home ever can be). There was a serenity to it, sure, and a peace that came with being with Eli, but we also had our fair share of challenges. 

The lack of wifi, as well as the complete lack of cell reception posed a threat to my peace of mind. I can’t communicate with the outside world. I posted a blog post on Friday and I can’t check up on it until Sunday. I can’t soothe myself by looking at Instagram when I feel bored or awkward in a social situation. I had to just stick it out. Eli didn’t like the lack of Wi-Fi, but I’m not going to lie, after a while I kind of came to enjoy it. There was something about it that was a challenge to me. It was about the two of us learning to communicate effectively without texting. Learning to communicate our thoughts, feelings and ideas in the moments we had together, and feeling safe in the moments we spent apart. This is something we struggle with at home, as his house has limited Wi-Fi and no cell reception, and I often find myself anxious when I’m apart from him for this very reason. But the challenges of this weekend made me (and I hope us) more secure in that lack of contact, and more secure in being apart. 

 When I first drafted this post, I wrote, "The biggest wow factor for me on this trip was not being anxious WOW." That was true at first, but by the second night it was not. Anxiety had mounted to something of a peak, and Eli went to bed early, in my mind abandoning me with a world of my own. I felt almost unsafe without him awake, alert, and by my side. This is the part where I would usually insert the lesson-- about how I ventured out on my own at 11:30 at night with just my camera and a vague idea of where the stars were. How I hastily and uncertainly walked to the upper camp, where I had been told you could see the constellations more brightly and clearly than anywhere else in the country. How I looked up, and was amazed, and took a photo, and felt at ease. All that was true, for a moment. And then I went back to the lodge and the anxiety crept back up again, the worries biting me again and again much like the black flies that plagued us outside. 

 I'm the kind of person who really likes...no, needs a home base. In every new place I visit I construct one out of the available materials, like a bird building a nest. I usually build them for myself, and it's a one person nest. In moments of anxiety it includes ginger ale, crackers, and something to do- whether that's working on editing a video or watching some silly YouTube videos. But out there, in the wilderness, in the vulnerability of being in the wild and knowing that you are really minuscule and the world is really big and the sky is even bigger, I learned that my definition of a home base has changed. 

 My home base is now a person, not a place or a construct or a collection of things. And that idea scares me, because what if he goes away? What if he leaves permanently? Will my heart race forever, without this sort of human drug that slows it, calms it down? Have I lost the ability to self regulate? Or have I gained the ability to ask for help? 

 The last time I was in the Adirondack mountains, I was spending the night at my best friend's camp. We watched The Lord of the Rings and kayaked out to a little island and talked about our dreams. But at 1 am, my heart wouldn't slow and my hands wouldn't stop shaking and I worked myself into a frenzy that only calling my mom put at ease. I didn't wake Kelsey up, and didn't even tell her about it until the next morning. But this time, I asked for help. I woke Eli up and he immediately shook off his frustration and put me at ease just by being. Vulnerability is absolutely terrifying. It is what made me shake with nervous excitement all the time when Eli and I first started dating. But it is also what permitted me to fall asleep that second night, and I am beginning to realize that it is what enables us to grow as well. 

 In the hours and hours of musical performances that I watched this weekend, I noticed something. The musicians didn't rush to speak after the music ended. They reveled in the natural silences, those charged, vulnerable, emotional silences, and didn't hasten to fill them. This made the silences that much more comfortable. They were electric, but somehow peaceful, and never awkward. I'm trying to learn how to revel in what some would call "awkward" silences. Because while they feel like an eternity, they're really only a few beats of your heart, and the music is moments away from picking up again. 

 -Fran

P.S.- If you're interested in seeing my video for the Roots & Branches Music Workshop, stay tuned to my YouTube channel. It should be up by the end of this week. In the meantime, check out this short teaser clip I posted on the Great Camp Sagamore Facebook page.

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

Last Week #11 | The Disconnect

 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. 

 -Fran