angsty

So the name Tavi Gevinson was instantly familiar.  Rookie sounded familiar.  Familiar enough that I knew I wanted to see her talk at Mem Union.  Once I sat down, I realized I first saw her on Fallon - the source of most of my media/pop culture/world news/Hollywood/random funny event knowledge.  What a great reminder of how much lab life is slowly taking over my life - I haven't watched Fallon in forever.

I'm supposed to muscling my way through a paper right now, but I'm feeling inspired.  And not exactly by antifreeze proteins...  

Tavi spoke a lot about inspiration.  Actually I guess her entire talk was about inspiration.  Fangirling, to be exact.  So obsessive inspiration?  Religious inspiration... but not religious in the way it has to do with religion.  And I feel cliche saying that she inspired me, but she kind of did.  Not necessarily in what she's accomplished or what she's specifically said tonight or whatever, but more in her entire young 18-year-old life.

Her journals were the most inspiring.  Journals saved me in middle school.  I used to think I could write poetry.  Haha.  Ha.  I've since come to my senses.  But "poetry" turned into short one page stories which turned into thoughts and then longer accounts of my days.  I got worse and worse about keeping up with it as I got older because I could only find the time or patience or speed to write when anger or sadness or happiness was magnified.  And then my hands would cramp and spelling got harder and harder.  And then there's the issue with how I lack artistic ability.  I loved the pictures Tavi shared of her journals, almost envious, because they were exactly how I tried to create mine.  Messy, disorganized, chaotic, but with clear effort and purpose.  Colorful and feeling.  Creative.

My journals were always just lines of words, so it only made sense to keep documents on my computer.  I mean, why not when I could type as fast as I could feel?  Even so, there are large gaps.  Large gaps of times when I was content enough with things that I didn't need to release anything.  My journal-documents became heavy with despondency and boys and drama.  And then they became nothing at all because I poured all the despondency and boys and drama onto other people who tolerated me for whatever reason (much appreciation).  It's kind of sad to think about the last time I sat down in a coffee shop to pen my immediate thoughts (a long ass time ago).  Without this time, I'm limited and censored to what I'm not afraid to say out loud, and my walks to and from work get awfully introspective before it all disappears once I'm in the company of other people again.  I'm constantly impressed by people who can create because I let myself get too distracted too easily.

I need to start journaling again.

Everything she said was so relatable. 

She talked about the pressures we face to succeed in creativity and originality and groundbreaking information in a world where it seems like all the information is already out there.  How she initially saw her diagnosis of depression as a positive thing in the tortured artist sense.  I remember when I was a preteen, feeling somehow validated to write "poetry" because I had experienced something tragic, and then that it was somehow good for the sole reason that it was real.

She even talked about relatability.  How loving someone or something (being an ultimate fangirl) and relating to them or their work validates your feelings instead of taking away your element of uniqueness.  I used to write my favorite lyrics on sheets of colored paper and tape them all over my walls, first thing when I wake and last thing before I fall asleep kind of thing.  I'd read and reread these chosen lines, memorizing them, internalizing them, because it was unbelievable how some other person could string my feelings together so perfectly.  I think that's why Buzzfeed was so addicting before it got too repetitive.  How is another person capturing my most bizarre habits or obscure thoughts before I've even had a chance to formally process them?

She was an impressive speaker, and I spent most of the Q&A session trying to find her 11-year-old musings.  Girl, angsty or not, was more sophisticated and eloquent than my angsty pre-teen self.  I'm too embarrassed to open one of my middle school journals; I can't believe she had the guts to put it in the webosphere.

"Most of my world is a composite of other worlds."

-Tavi

Anyways, I've started reading Rookie.

And now I'm going to leave you with a picture of my fruit salad from February.  Grapefruit, kiwi, pomegranate, basil, tossed in lemon basil syrup.