can't take the fight from the kid...

last weekend i had the privilege of doing some work for my old yb staff girl elyse and her friends. i know it was only two years ago but it really brought me back to my high school days. some days i dont feel that far away from high school, like my life is pretty much the same and im pretty much the same person i was two years ago, but seeing them interact made me realize how far from that life i really am. my saturdays no longer consist of softball games, meeting friends for lunch, running to the mall and finishing it up with movie night in someones basement. now i find myself working and realizing how much money i dont have so avoiding the mall at all costs. movie nights are now traded for binge drinking and random play. to be quite honest, the former life seems much more fun.

im not saying by any means id go back. there is a season for everything, but sometimes i wish that my inner self could go back there. back to a time when i didnt have to worry about having enough money to buy the stuff i needed to start the business i dont really have and maybe it will work maybe it wont. back to the time when i didnt feel so disconnected from friends, living a life they will never be a part of and seeing how true the saying is "out of sight out of mind" to some people. back to a time when things were structured for me by state law and i didnt have to think so much and make so many damn decisions. back when i could just do what i felt like and not have to worry how it might affect so many others, when i didnt feel like sometimes i was walking on needles. back to a time when i wasnt juggling a life of the past a somewhat in-between life of the present and a very uncertain future. back when life decisions didnt depend on the judgment or decisions of complete strangers ill never know. back to when i could sleep at night without waking up at three am wondering if i had done everything i was supposed to and emailed everyone i was supposed to and done all my homework and made all my phone calls and printed that damn sociology quiz out.

i wouldn't have it any other way?

things i need to tell myself outside of my head aka: how i stopped listening to the arcade fire and learned to love myself.

theres always a lot to think about this time of year. its like since Christmas we've all packaged ourselves into cocoons and refused to acknowledge each other or the world around us until it becomes a manageable temperature once again. we emerge way too pale and ready to drink copious amounts of alcohol and reintroduce ourselves to the world once again. excuse me while i talk to myself a little bit here.

-you need to get a grip on your school work once again. though it is not right now, it should be your main focus if you can hold onto your grades you will be quite pleased with yourself. also, you need to keep your shit together.

-portfolio time! ahh fuck that we'll deal with that later.

-you should probably call ut and tell them youre not coming back...you never did that you know.

-maybe you should just go back to ut, at least you know where everything is.

-have you ever considered writing as a possible venture? apparently youre not awful at it...hmm writers dont make any money...neither do second rate designers shiiiittt...

-did you know that the human head weighs eight pounds?

-you REALLY need a haircut or something

-why are haircuts so freaking expensive??? and why do you have to tip on top of that?

-you need to go deposit that check today, perhaps you can chew out the branch location manager b/c his employee told jordan to call clark howard. chewing people out always makes you feel better.

-I could fancy having me one of those 50mm f1.4s right about now...noooo save your money!

-It would be nice to have a job that didnt block its employees from using the internet...i just wanted to look up the weather. Oh well, maybe ill read more.

-time to get my act together. ive got several models who want to work with me and a website to build.



its the first day of spring, congratulations! we made it through the rough harshness of winter. daylight savings time has arrived and i couldnt be more excited about that. i dont know how many times ive said this, so i cant attest to how much it will actually work for me, but the weather is getting warm, im at home in a place where im comfortable, no longer depressed and surrounded by people who care about me. its time to stop worrying my life away. its fun time.

kissing the lipless.

i think it would help if i just sat down and took a moment to organize my thoughts into a nice little to do list.

otherwise i will probably go insane.


suffices to say ive got a lot on my plate right now.

most of which i dont even want on my plate to begin with.

haha.

sometimes i hear myself bitching and complaining about the above factors in my mind and i want to smack myself in the head. look where i came from, a girl who spent weekends watching top model marathons because she didnt have any other humans with which to interact. now look at me, im busier ever. and though i complain about some of the things i have to do, i enjoy most of them, and all of them benefit me in one way or another.

but the only way im going to get this all done in a non-shitty way without losing my mind or cussing someone out or getting fired or being mean is if i stay organized and on top of things.

but damn, a girls gotta sleep.

oh no, im listening to arcade fire again.

oh hey there, i forgot about you.

my life has been crazy busy, which is something im not used to. school twice a week, homework sometimes, trips back and forth to atlanta, lots of emails to uga, a small and very much not thriving photography business, oh and lets not forget work all tend to take up fractions of my time.

at the end of the day im usually left with a headache, a messy room and a numb disposition. but i am happy. for once in my life i feel at least somewhat productive. i have to feel productive, i dont have much time for myself, so how much more productive can i be?

i continue to let others walk all over me. whether it be the bride who wants to pay me two dollars to run from here to africa, camera in tow, while holding marbles under my eyelids or my coworkers who bat their eyelashes at me and ask me to cover their shifts with little promise of ever returning the favor. i continue to find myself at the mercy of everyone else's wishes and im the one to blame. i wallow in self pity, but i do it to myself. i had made a lot of good plans for the rest of the semester and now ive either inadvertently canceled all of them or dont even care about them anymore. sometimes it seems like any sense of optimism or stupid joy i had is slowly fading. i dont know whats wrong with me. i guess i just get too excited about things before they solidify, so then im often disappointed. i protect myself by not caring. theres a lot of things i wish i cared about, but im increasingly finding that i dont or dont as much as i used to.

but why care anyway when life is just going to disappoint you right? yeah im sure thats how we're supposed to live our lives, just readying ourselves for the next disappointment.

i dont even know what im talking about anymore.

i would like nothing more than to take a small trip to the beach and go for a walk on it even if it were kinda cold or cloudy and just take a break from thinking about all the shit that gets backed up in my brain everyday, all the things i worry about incessantly to the point where it paralyzes me from taking action. i would like to eat some crab legs or a well-cooked piece of fish, and a brownie sundae or something of the like would be nice as well. i would like to fall asleep in another city.

but the reality is all the beaches are covered over with fucking drunk high schoolers in wet t shirt contests, and i need to lock myself in my room and make 1 million+ self portraits and think about what the fuck "dead heat" means.

i comfort myself by thinking that summer is close, and THEN i can do something on my own terms, do something fun or interesting. then i realize that i have no cool summer plans either, and its unlikely that will change.

so in the meantime, ill just go back to default mode. ill worry about whether or not i can get a job and if not, can i stand to continue in my current one, ill worry about getting into uga even though its months before ill know, ill worry about the first portfolio review, even though theres not too much i can do about it at this point, ill worry that if i eat lunch i might begin to flub around the waste only to cancel my worries out by eating four snickers later in the day anyway, ill worry that somehow i am inadvertently fucking up my relationship with someone in someway and not really realizing it, ill worry about stupid sociology, ill worry that im spending too much of my pay check, ill worry about school next year and whether or not i think i can make it even though school is literally nine months away, ill worry about credits and transfer credits and blah blah blah and im going to be in college forever, ill worry about these gaping holes in my mouth, ill worry that somehow im doing something wrong.

i swear, this is probably the easiest time of my life, and i feel like ive never carried more weight on my back. theres always something to worry about and its starting to take its toll.