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

Last Week #9 | Honesty

 I'm a planner. And when I say planner, I don't just mean I like to make plans. I sure do, but that's not the extent of it. I like to make plans, and then I like to white knuckle grip the calendar in anticipation of my plan going awry. I clutch desperately to my plan, even if it's abundantly clear it's not going to work. And to be honest that has always worked for me, because I've only ever had to answer to myself, and things always got done that way. But now, something I'm learning as I progress and grow in friendships and relationships and adulthood, is that the plan isn't set in stone, and clinging to it like it is doesn't help anything. If something doesn't work, it doesn't work, and we should just do ourselves a favor and let it go. 

 This is easier said than done. Case in point-- I wrote the first paragraph of this blog post at the beginning of last week, and I meant it. I went on to talk about how "Things felt easier this week. Plans felt like they just came together, fell together. Although I did feel myself getting worked up about "the plan" at times, I tried to keep it in check, and not give in to that anxious crutch."

 I even went on to describe each day in detail, and talk about how things just fell together on each one of them, despite my not making explicit plans for them. For my grand finale I finished with, "I rolled with the punches this week, and I think it's because I did my best to channel my inner Idina and LET IT GO.  To all you planners out there, I challenge you, nay I urge you to unhand the calendar a little bit this week. Not to your detriment-- you should still use it to remember when that dreaded dentist appointment is, but remember that things will still get done even if you don't stare at it and check things off every five seconds. It's as much of an addition as technology or chocolate. Break up with your calendar this week. Or at least...take a 'break.'"

 But then, Sunday rolled around. And for some mysterious reason that I couldn't, and still can't figure out, I couldn't get out of bed. I've had depression for a good portion of my life I'd say. I've felt depressed before, I've been in the depths of it, and thought I'd seen and felt it all. But this, this not being able to get out of bed, this not being able to find a reason to get up despite the dozens of things I have to look forward to- in the immediate and long term future- this was new to me. And until about the middle of the afternoon, I couldn't cope with it. But then, I accepted some help. I allowed my boyfriend to come over, and we watched Bob's Burgers and ate Panera and randomly went to Old Navy so I could get out for a bit. It wasn't my original plan for the day, and there were parts of it that were ugly, but at the end, it was beautiful. 

 I decided early last week that I was going to start really writing on this blog. I'm not going to shy away from things anymore, I told myself. I'm going to tell the truth. The hard, ugly, blurry truth. So when it came time to finalize this blog post, I couldn't rationalize using the original draft, because it felt hypocritical to leave out the ugly bits just to prove my point. So I wanted to tell you the truth in this blog post. And the truth is, I have a lot to learn, even about things I thought I knew everything about. There are some things I'd rather not know more about, like the unexplored depths of my own depression. But even though it might not be my plan to learn more about it, even though I'd rather not go there, I have to realize that fuck-- things don't always go according to plan. I may very well see more depths, even amidst these many peaks. I'm working on coming to terms with that today, last week, and every day in the future. 

 -Fran

This Week [#3: Family]

This holiday week/weekend was a time of figuring out what "family" means, and what it means to me. It really feels like that's what this week was about, because from beginning to end, that's the message that kept cropping up.

 Mondays: Watching great shows and having adult realizations that make you want to lay on the floor, give up, and die.

 Tuesdays: Watching The Mindy Project while you bake, which you feel like Mindy would definitely approve of.

Wednesdays: Reading great graphic novels, reuniting with friends, and going to impromptu Friendsgiving gatherings with the great best friend love of your life and getting Panera at 10 pm because you're cool like that.

Thursdays: When your favorite holiday always falls on your favorite day of the week and you have a kind of crappy day but you eat pie and hang out with a two year old who loves you despite the fact that you're imperfect and it makes it all better.

Fridays: Watching a movie about emotions with your family, crying your eyes out, and then going to bed early.

Saturdays: Telling your friends you're in aisle 20B when you're actually sitting at a table waiting for them and you didn't think they'd actually go there but they did. And then playing a card game you've been playing with your family for years and feeling like this small group of weirdos just might be your new family.

Sundays: Watching TV and napping. Eating. 

(Rinse and repeat until it's 10 pm and you're too tired to do it anymore.) Question: If it's a Sunday and you're actually a productive member of society, was it really a Sunday?

 It's weird when you get to an age where "family" is no longer the extended family you were born into, but the extended family you choose. I think how our culture defines family is arbitrary. I think we make our own families, and I think it's pointless to love people just because you're supposed to. It means a lot more when you choose them yourself, when you choose to love people despite how hard it might be sometimes. My family has become much more than my parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles. It now consists of: Starbucks employees, coffee shop owners, musicians, writers, artists and generally beautiful people (inside and out). It's people who call you on their break when you're having your third existential crisis of the week, it's people who you'd drive an hour and a half just to see for two hours, it's people who sit down and help force you to write because they get that you're having trouble doing it on your own, it's people who play cards with you in an emptying Wegmans on a Saturday night because there's nowhere else to go. These people are my family. 

 -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

This Week [#1: This Life]

 Since I've been doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month in the month of November-- in which brave writers across the world attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in a month), and have been daily vlogging the experience, I haven't been doing my Weekly Vlogs on my YouTube channel. And while I know I will get back to doing them in December, I miss the experience. I miss the routine of capturing the little, beautiful, happy moments throughout my week, and choosing how to put them together at the end of the week. I miss telling stories with those few images. So in an attempt to continue to do this during NaNoWriMo, I've been taking snapshots everyday. Just quick pictures of what my day consisted of, in lieu of taking footage every day.

 Mondays are for binge-watching whole seasons of awesome, inspiring TV shows on your boyfriend's Netflix.

 Tuesdays are for falling asleep in your bed at 4:30 watching How To Get Away With Murder because it was rainy and windy and your lights and the Medicare commercials lulled you to sleep.

 Wednesdays are for getting up too early, accomplishing nothing, and then giving up at 2:30 pm and taking a Lush bath.

 Thursdays are for accomplishing all of the things you didn't do Wednesday, like writing 1,000 words in your favorite coffee shop, listening to music, Pinterest-ing and eating too much chocolate.

 Fridays are for running about like a crazy person, scrambling to get web series minisodes ready for upload, and cupping coffees that taste like teas.

 Saturdays are for stressful but ultimately lovely meetings of parents, and impromptu road trips to middle of nowhere places, where all there is is a sign and a general feeling.

Finally, Sunday is the day on which you feel the luckiest-- where you get to spend the day taking photos in the woods for your best friend's coffee shop, then eating Sunday dinner with those same friends and watching The Walking Dead with them. Sunday is the day to spend with family. And this week, I got to do that.

I hope you guys enjoyed this collective look at my week. It was really fun and grounding to make this blog post, as it forced me to keep track of the moments that would otherwise slip away from me. As we get closer to the holiday season, it is so easy to fall into that mindset of "just getting things done." But when we do that, we get to the end of the week and can't see anything but the productivity (or lack thereof). The beautiful, lovely, fun moments get lost in the shuffle, and we forget them. We forget to be grateful for them. I don't want to forget them. I want to stay present, mindful, and grateful for the life I get to live. And I think this blog post format is a way for me to do that. So what I guess I'm saying is-- get used to this. Because I'm going to be doing it every week from now on.

 -Fran

On Observing

 Lately I’ve been trying to observe. I feel like I’ve been “doing” less, but that’s because I’m trying to observe the life happening around me. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I’m a human being, not a human doing, and it’s enough for me to simply appreciate my life for the wholly un-whole mess it is right now. It really is a beautiful mess. Full of complete and incomplete moments. It’s the best it’s ever been, and all it’s ever been. But I’m constantly afraid that it’s on the verge of coming undone. Unraveling. Unwinding. 

 But that can’t be because for once I’m not, my life isn’t, wound too tightly. It’s loose, hanging in the balance, because there is finally a balance to hang from. There’s finally something to rely on. I’ve finally found something I’d be afraid to lose. Something worth losing. But that’s great, because at least that’s something. Something worth losing was the best thing I ever had.

 The something worth losing is the fireplace warmth on the cold fall nights with the people I love who all love each other. Playing silly games and eating decadent but simple things together. I can hear it. I can feel it. The warmth, the happiness, the laughter spilling over from one person to the next. It’s catching. This season of generosity and warmth-- I’m going to keep saying warmth because that’s what it feels like. It’s so cold out but the interactions between people, between these people, we people, are so warm and friendly and growing and catching and lively and heated and energetic. There is this nervous, fervent, bubbling energy. And I'm beginning to understand, in my twentieth year, that that's what lasting friendship consists of.

 -Fran

Change.

   I'm feeling this effervescent joy and excitement right now. I love these people. I feel so high when I'm with them. And I can't wait for you all to see the project we made together.

 But it makes me so scared because people leave and things change and nothing is ever as it was before. That's the one thing that always stays the same. Change. It's hard for me to do real life sometimes because I often confuse excitement with anxiety. So I think things are bad when really they're pretty great. That's how I felt this summer. Except for once I knew I had a good thing and it was cool, but now it's over and I'm sad.

 I know this isn't your typical blog post, full of optimism and excitement and facts and intelligence. It's just feelings and me being too pretentious for my own good. But sometimes I have those and feel the urge to share them with you.

 -Fran

Wicked & Free

  
  So on Wednesday I met with my mentor at my orientation for Empire State College, and we talked about a lot of things, including my future as a student. But we also strayed to the subject of my name, Francesca Cacace, and what it means. I already knew that Francesca means free, but she was very interested to know what Cacace meant. We looked it up, and it turns out it means wicked. “Wicked and free” she repeated over and over, “wicked and free.” And that stuck in my head. 

  Like hell yeah, I am wicked and free. This year has already been so much better than the previous two. I’ve made more, loved more, been happier more. And I haven’t been constantly aware of the passage of time, as I was in the past. This year has, for the first time in a long time, truly flown by. But for the rest of this year, and hopefully the foreseeable future as well, I want to stay in that mindset of being wicked and free. I want to be free— free of fear, free of self-inflicted pain and doubts, free of things holding me back. Free to do what I want and be who I want. And I want to be wicked. By that I mean, not so cautious. Not so hesitant. Not so…meek. I want to be wicked, I want to be free, I want to feel alive and happy and like I’m having so much fun my excitement borders on anxiety. So this is a message to you all. From here on out, I’m going to be wicked and free. 

Who will you be?

 -Fran