Ayoungwomansthoughts - A Young Woman's Thoughts

I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.

Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.

The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.

I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.

one of my favorite lines.

may these memories break our fall

how to fall in love with life again

go cloud-gazing, lay down in the grass on a sunny day, or empty roads on a rainy day, stare up at the sky and let your mind wander.

read a book so complex that you don't understand anything, fill your arms with scrawled definitions.

writing poems and notes of kindness, hiding them for other people to find and pass along!

read passages of love in another language, untranslated and realise that love can surpass even the greatest of barriers.

find your favourite flower! hunt for it, research it, write an essay on why you love it and how much it means to you!

buy another copy of your favourite book, fill the pages with annotations and give it to a second hand shop for somebody else to experience it the way that you do.

fill a journal with moments of your life, even if you don't think they're very interesting.

listen to music whilst looking at the moon and stars, realising how beautiful life is.

visit an art gallery or a museum near you. become familiar with it, visit it until you know it inside out. make it your special place.

learn the little things about people, including yourself. find their favourite colour and why, find their music taste, their taste in books until you know them perfectly.

the small things! taking sips of warm beverages becomes the most comforting thing, closing your eyes for a moment on a bus and focusing on the lull of movement.

bake/cook your favourite treat. experiment and find the way that makes it taste simply ethereal.

Repeat after me:

I am the woman of my own dreams. I require no validation. My wish is my command. My life is my own, I build it. My voice is my own, I let it be heard. I am relentless in my dedication to trusting myself. I am insatiable in my thirst for the extraordinary, and I do not settle for the mediocre.

i want to be so kind it echoes backwards in time and undoes the things that hurt you. i want to be so kind it radiates from me. i want to be so kind that i make someone else find faith in humanity again. there’s not much i can do, i’m small and weak and i only know so many words. but i know i can be kind. and sometimes, i believe, that changes the world.

types of academia pt. 2

art: paint dried at the cuffs of your favorite jacket, ink smudged hands, your notebooks are just sketchbooks for your class doodles with notes crammed in between the drawings, sudden revelations, wanting to create something meaningful with your own two hands, thinking of pygmalion during your sculpting class, reading a book and coming across that one sentence that sparks the inspiration for your next piece, afternoons on a soft green hill sketching, the scent of jasmine on the breeze, the music blaring in your headphones is all you can hear or feel as you work through the night, laying under the starlight

writer: the sound of a pen against parchment, the glow of a computer screen in a dark room, the sound of a clock ticking away the hours, reading with a hunger that will only be satisfied once you can give shape to your own words, empty notebooks, notebooks full of poetry, forgotten ideas that were not written down, your notes app is full of poetry, rainy days full of time spent typing away, living every experience in its rawest fork because you know you can write about it later, “write what you know” so you try to know everything, dreaming through your characters eyes, you and the moon have become good friends after nights spent writing under her light and reading your prose out loud

romantic: sketches of your love in a sketchbook that’s falling apart, singing to the moon at night, reciting sonnets alone in the woods, linen and silk, bathed in golden light, wax seals on love letters, pressed flowers in a journal, wanting to catch the stars and put them in the eyes of the one you love, the sweet scent of roses, ivy crawling up a cobblestone wall, a garden full of statues and plants that flint silver in the moonlight, sweet milk tea, daydreaming in a meadow

sci-fi: stargazing is a personality trait, deteriorating copies of sci-fu novels, coffee stained science magazines, a cork board full of conspiracies, squinting at the sky in search of life, believing there’s something more, tangled headphones, leather-bound dream journal, fog filled nights, psychoanalyzing, sticky note with the names of different theories scribbled on it that you need to research later, scrolling through wikipedia pages under your blanket when you should be sleeping, walkie talkies, a head full of wonder

urban: city lights blazing like stars, briskly walking down streets through the crisp air, drizzle fogging your glasses, hands in the pockets of a frayed coat, the overt dichotomy of light and dark, shadows in alleys and buzzing neon signs, dim bars and lit apartment windows, a small book shop crammed between a starbucks and bank, going to a vintage movie theater at the center of the city, mornings spent at the museum that’s free before noon, nights snuggled up in a blanket in your small, overpriced apartment as you read a book near the window and watch the city breathe

pt. 1

Virginia Woolf, The Years

“I used to dislike being sensitive. I thought it made me weak. But take away that single trait, and you take away the very essence of who I am. You take away my conscience, my ability to empathize, my intuition, my creativity, my deep appreciation for the little things, my vivid inner life, my deep awareness of others’ pain, and my passion for it all.”