The worst kind of lost

I think I’ve outgrown my home
I’m kind of feeling lost wherever I go 
And I could be staring it right in the face and I wouldn’t know 
I think I’ve outgrown my home

These are lyrics from the song 'Out on my own' by Gabrielle Aplin, who has somehow managed to perfectly articulate all that I have been feeling lately. Only months ago the town I live in seemed exciting and full of life to me, but now all that I can see is overly visited hang out spots and repetition of scenery. Also school and all the drama and worries it brings no longer has the ability to fully occupy my mind. It feels like a place that already belongs to my past, but somehow is still part of my 'present' and will be for another full year. 

Since reality feels like it doesn't fit me anymore I've been looking for homes in other places. In books and art and music. I've been reading stories I used to love and watching movies from when I still fit their tween demographic, but even these tales that I could once find so much comfort in feel like they no longer belong to me. The girl I used to find between the lines of 'This Lullaby' by Sarah Dessen (a novel I used to love when I was younger) is lost. 

The book I'm talking about

I am not sure what brought about this sudden feeling of outgrowing my current life. For someone with a set plans and clear goals for the future the longing to move on would be logical, but with me that is not the case. I have no clue where I am headed and it doesn't make me feel like some whimsical free spirit floating through life. On the contrary, my thoughts of the future are mostly filled with fear. 

I recently read a diary post on Rookie by Britney in which she wrote that as teenagers we are doomed to be cynical untill we see more of life. I believe she is right and that is also what makes me so anxious about the future, because what if it only makes me more cynical? What if I never find a place that fits me? 

When I was younger the future seemed like a fantastical and terrifying unknown to me. I believed that when I would graduate I would ride off on a road with no destination, meeting cool people and experiencing amazing things along the way. I would truly live. Now that I am actively planning for college, summer draws closer and I will soon only have one year of high school left all the mystique is gone from my future. I know I will go to college. I know what colleges I will (probably) apply to and attend. I know what they look like. Hell, I even know what kind of room I will probably be living in once I graduate. This is no adventurous roadtrip through life. 

Yet, (like I mentioned earlier) I have no sense of the direction. I know, I'm paradoxical. All these images of days to come seem empty to me. The same kind of empty my life feels like right now. It's like I'm floating, following the direction of the stream, while I know I should be swimming. I should actively be filling that fantastical unknown with experiences and people and meaning.  I am lost, but not in the way that feels like liberation. My kind of lost feels like an old sweater that I have gotten too big for. It fits a little too snug around the chest, my belly peeks out awkwardly and taken it off is a hard task. 

The Gabrielle Aplin song I mentioned

A list for feeling unalone

I've been feeling very disconnected with the world lately. Maybe it's because not much is happening in my life, or maybe it's because I'v been getting to know this thing called 'loneliness' too well. I'm constantly looking for something to relate to, some part of myself, in the world outside but I keep coming up short. So instead of fixing my lost connection, I've developed several other ways to feel somewhat unalone. Since making lists is my expertise, I decided to make a lists of the (strange) things I do to feel somewhat connected.

1. Reading all the Rookie 'Dear Diary'- posts

Almost all the time I have this very teen-angsty feeling of 'I'm so alone in my troubles. No one understands what I'm going through!' But then I read Noami's, Ruby's and Britney's entries and look at Caitlin's art here and suddenly I realize there are people in this universe who feel exactly the same way as I do. When I look at the people around me I always assume they only have rational thoughts and feelings that arise as a logical result of a certain event or happening. Reading the entries of these girls has makes me feel like I can be more comfortable with the fact that I have feelings that are weird or complicated or don't make sense at all. Going through several months in one day also allows for witnessing very visible 'ups' in the girls' lives.

2. Turning my feelings into a Tumblr tag

Sometimes when I have nothing else to do I will type how I'm feeling at that moment into the Tumblr search bar, just to see how others express their happiness/sadness/anger. Strangely enough it gives me a lot of comfort to read that some random person just found a new apartment or had a fight with his/her best friend or had to stay in bed for two days because of a bad cold. Perhaps I enjoy knowing that those things happen completely unaffected by me. That while I'm happy there are many others who feel the same way, but also many who at that same moment are having the worst day ever and vice versa.

3. Listening to Taylor Swift

I've never really been a fan of Taylor and her music was simply part of those songs that I have on my iPod, but only ever listen to when I put it on shuffle. This was also exactly how everything changed and Taylor became my best friend. On a long car ride home from Antwerp with my parents I had put my Ipod on shuffle and suddenly Taylor Swift's song 'Fifteen' came on. Too sleepy from the soft rocking of our vehicle I didn't bother to skip it and kept listening. In a heartfelt manner Taylor told me about her boy troubles, meeting her best friend in math class and her dreams of becoming a singer. This song was like all the non-events of my high school life wrapped up in a bubbly feel-good melody. I've been playing her albums on repeat ever since, because no cool indie rockband can give me the same comfort as listening to my cooler best friend sing about our lives. 

4. Writing/Drawing/Collaging

Little watercolor 'doodle' from my sketch book

Sometimes all those diary entries I read, those Tumblr posts I see and Taylor Swift songs I listen to feel like one part of a dialogue. The other part is left for me to fill in and lately I've been doing a lot of that. My diary is getting fuller faster than ever and I have my art stuff (actually an old box with paints, pencils and magazines to cut up) out several times a week. The stuff I write or make isn't always very good, but that doesn't really matter. In creating things, even if they are just about my angsty feelings,  I feel like I am contributing to some greater discussion. I sometimes secretely hope that when I'm brave enough to show my (better) works to someone they will jump up and say: "That's it! That's exactly what I have been feeling lately! Lets's become best friends and talk about how scary growing up is and make art together and share our diary entries." (Okay, maybe that last bit is a bit too much to ask for ;) ) 

Friday Favorites

It's Friday! Which means that for me not it's not only the end of the schoolweek, but also the beginning of my vacation. The last week has strangely been a stressful, but at the same time relaxing week for me. I had a lot of schoolwork to finish up, but at the same time lots of my classes got cancelled. So, in spite of pressing deadlines I spent quite a few hours hanging out in the park with my friends, checking my Youtube subscriptions and just randomly clicking around on the internet. These are some of the things that caught my eye.