Have You Been Writing Lately?

I've been asked this question by friends, coworkers, and my boss.

Writing was something I did, something I loved. People have read my writing and felt something - they felt they were seen, they felt they saw me, they felt that they gained clarity, that I put language to an emotion or experience they've had and couldn't articulate.

My writing has an impact on real people and I loved that I was able to give that.

But lately, writing has felt so self-indulgent.

I felt like I was spending too much time looking inward, pitying myself. This spurs guilt and embarrassment and I backspace everything and close the window.

I feel guilty for not doing enough, for not being involved in grassroots activism, for not being better with my money so I am able to donate more of it. I feel guilty for not showing up, for not joining in. I feel guilty for being absorbed in my pain, in my sadness.

All this guilt and shame is a wall between me and writing.

 I want to forgive myself. I need to forgive myself.

I want to give myself permission to be indulgent on this blog, this quiet space on the world wide web that a private coorporation lets me occupy.

I want to inhale and take up space. Exhale and stay there.

Me and Taylor Swift (but mostly me)

If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.

I've loved Taylor Swift since I was about 13. I remember being so excited to turn 15 so I can sing Fifteen and really feel it.

Her CDs were treasures. Fearless was a present from my brother, Speak Now was a present from a friend, Red was a present from a boyfriend, and buying 1989 felt like coming-of-age experience. I streamed Reputation and Lover (rip cds)

I'm trying to put my thoughts into words but it's actually so hard to talk about my love for Taylor Swift.

But watching Miss Americana showed me that I don't actually love Taylor Swift, the person. I don't... can't know her. I don't even think I like Taylor Swift, the celebrity persona (I don't care for her social media, interviews, or pretty much anything she does outside of her music...). What I love, what keeps me coming back to her music year after year, is how her music makes me feel about myself, my life, my emotions, my past, and my hopes.

My love for her is actually a just a love for... me.

When I was a teenager, I had all these repressed and unrequited emotions and listening to Taylor felt like a release. It was like I was living vicariously through her. She sang out loud all the emotions I told myself I was stupid for feeling. 

When older people would scoff at the pathetic or childish subject matters of her songs, when they roll their eyes and say (another breakup song?!), I hide the fact that I found comfort in those songs.

Taylor Swift mentions in Miss Americana that it felt like her fans grew up with her. I've returned to Taylor Swift album after album. I always return skeptically. Maybe the new version of her is not for me anymore. I've definitely read articles and interviews from people that make me was to dissociate with Taylor.

But then I eventually listen again. And love it again.

Gorgeous sounds exactly like how having on a crush on someone feels

State of Grace sounds like what hope for a new romance feels like

Long Live is the only other song apart from Graduation (Vitamin C) that epitomises that end of an era with a close circle of close-proximity friends

Enchanted reminds me of the stomach churning nervous hope that follows after I've met someone who I have great instant chemistry - will this be a meet cute or a standalone anecdote?

The Best Day makes me miss my parents and siblings

Mean is song that I can't relate to but is just fun to my ears and my brother and I laugh every time we listen to the bridge.

I saw her live during her RED tour and it was an experience I feel so lucky to have had. I went with my then boyfriend and I got to have my cake and eat it as well - he recorded clips on his phone, allowing me to fully immerse myself into the show, while also having blurry but precious concert footage to look back on. 

I felt so old and so brown at the concert. I realised that night that my love for Taylor Swift isn't a part of a web or networks of fans. I wasn't a Swiftie. I'm just a girl, sitting in her room, and listening to Taylor Swift and feeling her feelings.

I didn't want to be in a fanbase, I didn't want to be in a crowd.

I tried to shut the crowd out and enjoy the show like it was just her and I and my boyfriend in the (massive) room. It felt truly magical to slow dance and make out while she was singing Begin Again. 

Being a celebrity looks like a deeply dehumanising experience and I can never tell who is enjoying the ride and who is tolerating it to make art and connect with audiences (maybe it's both??).

I resent/envy their luxuries and I don't understand their struggle.

Was Miss Americana a step towards humanising Taylor? Are we meant to feel closer to her after watching it?

I was surprised to find that apart from the subject matters in her songs, I related to how she used to hold up being good and nice as the pillars of her moral compass and worldview. 

A nice girl smiles and waves and says thank you. A nice girl doesn’t make people feel uncomfortable with her views

She's moved (moving?) past that now. I'm also trying to break that deeply held view that I've built my whole personality on.

And again, something else Taylor Swift did/made is just a tool for me to look at myself more, not her.

Am I narcissistic? Is her art just a fitting mirror for me?

I don't know. I just know who Spotify will tell me is my number one artist for 2020.

Relatable and not cute

Of the three common taboos (death, sex, and money), money for me is the most awkward (at best) and shameful (at worst/usual) topic.

It's awkward/deeply anxiety inducing not knowing how much I'm being paid compared to my colleagues. I feel that I'm underpaid. I don't know the stats and figures and trends, it's just an educated guess.

It's awkward/deeply anxiety inducing lying to friends about being too busy to hang out because the proposed plans are too expensive (a $4.90 coffee counts as too expensive most days).

It's awkward/deeply anxiety inducing when the first Happy Birthday text I recieve is from Moola and I remember every other short-term loan and debt collector I owe money to.

It's awkward/deeply anxiety inducing asking parents or friends to borrow money. I know I'm borrowing money from people who aren't giving from a comfortable pool of savings or excess dispoable income. We are the struggling helping the struggling.

It is my New Year's resolution to save $500. An amount I find anxiety inducing to tell people. I worry that this is a small inconsequential amount to them and they are judging me for making the bar so low.

I also worry that this amount is too high and they can't imagine putting that amount of money aside over 12 months due to their low income and high living costs.

I don't want to make someone else feel ashamed for how little money they have. I don't want them to feel the same way I do when friends so casually talk about how spending $800 on return flights is such a great price and I pretend that the reason I'm not tagging along is simply out of lack of interest.

I want to be better with money.

I want to take steps so that money is less awkward/anxiety inducing.

I am taking steps.

Perfectionism: A Word Vomit

I am so terrified about not being absolutely amazing at everything I do.

I'm pretty sure I've said that in a previous blog post but I'm too scared to re-read any of them in case I don't love them. Then I'll feel like a useless failure.

And I feel dumb for putting too much pressure on myself about this blog, which I titled "Drafts" in the spirit of the mess and imperfection of stream of consciousness blog posting.

I caught up with a friend over a foodcourt dinner and coffee (iced) and he reminded me that I truly have the skills, ideas, and an imperitive to write.

Nothing I do stems from a place of self-acceptance and self-compassion. I'm usually motivated by fear and obligation and when it comes to... er, life. But with writing, those two things just aren't cutting it anymore.

I run away from writing projects and assignments and I don't feel like there's any real need for me to write. I give into the fear and I lose a sense of obligation.

My friend reminded me that I have a very specific voice and specific perspective that actually makes for compelling writing. Maybe not in these blog posts, but there are things that I want to write about, that will add value into other people's lives.

I want to pull away from the rigidity of perfection on the one hand, and everything else that's trash on the other.

I know how my fear of failure is tied to my childhood anxieties and expereinces, I just don't know how to move passed it.

When A Friend Is Grieving

I want to message her every day to tell her I love her.

I want to message her every day to say if there was anything she needed, let me know.

I want to message her every day to tell her how amazing she is and that she is the legacy of her parents who I've never met.

I want to message her every day.

But I don't.

I message her to tell her I love her.

I tell her I think about her daily, and that she need only to think of me when she has the capacity.

I tell her I'm here, and that she doesn't have to be here until she's done being every where else she needs to be.

I tell her I can talk about my strange romance if she wants a distraction.

I tell her my pay weeks.

I tell her she can give me the seen or leave my messages unopened for as long as she wants.

Then I leave it.

I want to message her every day.

The Point: Outsider At Home

I'm trying to write about my recent visit to Samoa.

I'm trying to write about the feeling of returning home but also feeling like a foreigner and a tourist, looking at Samoa as an outsider.

I'm trying to write about feeling nostalgic for a place I don't recognise anymore.

I'm trying to write about I've thought of Samoa as home but when someone asked me, where are you from? I answered, New Zealand.

I'm trying to write about how I feel like I belong in Samoa, without having to prove anything, but also that in order to feel like Samoa is home properly, I have to give, serve, tautua.

I want to give, I want to go back, I want Samoa to be familiar again.

I want to know Samoa and I want Samoa to know me too.

I'm trying to write all of this... so here is my brainstorm.

Some Thoughts 005

1. I want to start to forgive myself. Whenever I read an old blog post, or see a social media post for x years ago, I cringe and hate my old (younger) self. I become so ashamed about how ignorant I was. I was too eager, too blind, too sure, too everything. I find it hard to even read over some thoughts I used to have. But when I'm hating on younger Laura, I'm also hating on current Laura. Because although I'm not the same person I was, that person is still a part of me. And I need to forgive them for being who they were with the information they had at the time. I need to forgive myself. Because the alternative, what I'm currently doing, is not helping me grow. 

2. Suicide is a thing I want to read more about. Not how to commit it (although I do have some days where I wish for it), but the wider social patterns regarding it. I want to read stats, and person stories, and "suicide prevention" guides, and words from academics, faith leaders, politicians, and people who've lost a loved one/s. I want to paint a bigger picture that's beyond my own dark thoughts.

3. Lately I've been enjoying readings people's #AppreciationPosts on social media. I used to read them and roll my eyes at the wall of text accompanying a photo, thinking that people are so desperate to project a life worth envying that they show off the markers of a happy life while actually feeling deeply discontent and insecure about their lives. Maybe that's the case, maybe it's not. But feeling that way about them ruins my life and my day. So instead, I read with the lens that people are so overwhelmed with genuine gratitude that even after expressing their appreciate with the people around them (incl. the ones they may be grateful for), they still feel a burning desire to share it online. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. But it makes for a more enjoyable scrolling time for me.