Update

It's been a long time, and for that I apologize.

What you have to understand is that my life has been in a near constant state of turmoil and I am just now getting back into a "normal" routine. So I guess it's time for a lightning round of...

What the Heck I've Been Doing this Past Month

1. I took my finals around the middle of April. Finals are awful, but they brought my first year of college to a close, which felt pretty good, I guess.

2. I moved out my my apartment, which was a hellish experience. I hate, hate, hate packing in a way that I can't fully explain without sound effects, facial expressions, and falling on the ground crying. I think that in the two day period between finishing finals and moving out, I said more curse words that I had in my entire life up to that point. I also had to do a top-to-bottom deep-clean of the apartment, which involved spraying more chemicals into small, poorly ventilated spaces than can be healthy.

Highlights, for your amusement: Me, running around the apartment in a bight pink bra and soccer shorts, screaming at my (recently stubbed) toe when my roommates were both still taking finals; Me, crying in my closet because I was sweating too much and it was making me mad; And me, finally walking out if that blasted apartment for the last time, thinking, "I am literally sweating Windex."

3. I moved back home for the next 8 months. It's been a transition, but things are looking good so far. I spent the whole first week sleeping (because MEMORY FOAM MATTRESS), and the second week job-hunting.

4. I got a job at a toy store! I start training tomorrow, so let's all hope that goes well. I've already freaked out a few times and I haven't even started yet... Hmmm...


Anyway, that's just a brief update. I have lots of wonderful posts on deck that should be posting in the next few weeks. Thanks for sticking with me! I love you guys!

The Greatest Fear

There's that quote that's thrown around all the time.

Something about how what we fear most in not failure, but, in fact, our own majestic, glowing potential to do good and be good and vanquish our own weaknesses.

And yes, perhaps that is valid for some people. Maybe one of you harbors a deep-rooted terror of your own excellence. If that is your cross to bear, your own brand of hamartia, then it is real to you. I'm not trying to discount that.

But for me, my shining potential is a million miles away from my greatest fear. More pressing fears include spiders (and any possible spider mutations allowing them to fly), tight, crowded, and/or loud spaces, enduring a Russian prison sentence, accidentally joining a gang, the candiru and the myths surrounding it, getting lost in a city at night, sharks, riptides, people who lurk, any situation that would cause me to be portrayed as a victim on an episode of Law & Order: SVU (which is a great show, but also kind of terrifying), and having to repeat high school.* 

In the grand scheme of things, I think fear of greatness falls somewhere between my fear of choking on a mini-marshmallow while drinking hot cocoa and contracting rabies from a rabbit bite. 

So, no, not a big fear of mine. 

My biggest fears are the stuff of cliches, yet I wonder sometimes if things become cliche and over-used and mocked because they're actually essential human truths that we're too scared to admit plague us because they're embarrassing. Because they reveal too much of our gooey centers and put dents in our glossy, scared-of-our-own-perfection topcoats. 

Isn't everyone scared of being alone? Scared of turning out to be tragically insignificant? Scared of losing what they have?

Hasn't everyone, at some point, laid in bed contemplating how small they are and how infinite the universe is and how totally unfathomably minuscule they are in the grand scheme of things?

Regardless of religion or level of devoutness, we all, at some point, allow ourselves to wonder what happens when we die. What if, by some tragic turn of events, this really is all there is and death is really the end? What if we all end, with the crisp finality of a lobbed-off ponytail, and end up 6-feet-under with no way out?

These are the fears of madmen and heretics, the fears of kings and soliders... the fears of the human condition.

We want to matter. We want to be relevant. We want to be unforgettable. We want, we want, we want. We spend our lives, from our first breath to our last, wanting.

My greatest fear, I suppose, is that no one will be willing to look up from their wanting long enough to see me, really see me, and say, "I see you. I need you. And you're enough."

And I guess I'm also scared that I'll be too consumed in my own wanting to do that to someone else.

I do not fear my potential to be great. I fear my potential to love and be loved. We all do.

So we face that fear everyday.

We learn to look past wants as we decide to see others as we so desperately need to be seen. We love, not because it is easy, gentle, or painless, but because it is something we need. We love because we know the glittering paradoxes of the human condition and know that acceptance is the one thing that cause ease the nausea when the glitter goes to our heads. We love because we are human and because we know we must face our fears.

We love because we are scared, but also because it is the one thing that seems to make us feel safe.

We love, we love, we love. 

Stuff and Things on My Brain

1. I am so over fair-weather friends. Suffice it to say, my feelings have been hurt a few times this week/year by people who choose to only be my friend when I'm doing well, but who will literally pretend I don't exist when I'm not.

People, hear me. It's better to just not be friends with someone than to only be that kind of friend. I can deal with someone not liking me/not wanting to be my friend, but the feeling of hurt and betrayal that comes with having a fair-weather friend is absolutely horrid.

Please, please, please take that into consideration in your day-to-day life. Thanks.

2. Here are some songs I really like these days, for your listening pleasure.

Don't You Worry Child cover by Madilyn Bailey

Keep Your Eyes Open by NEEDTOBREATHE

How to Be a Heartbreaker by Marina and the Diamonds

Landslide by Fleetwood Mac

Bluebird by Sara Bareilles

3. I have decided to take a semester off school for reasons. I am so blessed to have a family that supports me in this decision! So yes, when school wraps up at the end of April, I will be returning home. And staying there for eight months. Whaaaat?!

Goals for my time "off" include geting my license, geting a job, and getting appropriate amounts of sleep most nights. Also hanging out with some amazing friends that I've missed like crazy, and possibly going running everyday...?

4. I'm allergic to Utah. The weather was amazing today, but so are the magnitude of the allergy symptoms I'm having. To be fair, I'm a little bit allergic to Pennsylvania, but not nearly as allergic as I am to Utah. Time to break out the Zyrtec...

5. My hair is long now. Not long long, but longer than it's been in two years. Wanna see a picture?

Boom. Super long. I can get 70% of it into a ponytail, so that's exciting. I'm trying to get used to having it down, though, because when I used to have it long long, it was always in a bun, like so:

(Apparently, 16-year-old me knew I would need a bun-pic for my future blog.)

Anyway, hope you survived your Wednesday. I did. Just barely.

x,

   g

Cave Dwelling

They told me I needed something fun, something exciting to look forward to. Plan a party, read a book. Do something, for heaven's sake, because seeing you just sit there is... freaky. It's strange. It's abnormal.

And then they told me that people are happier when they're looking at a bright future or whatever. And yeah, that's probably true, I suppose. But it's easier to have a positive perspective when you're standing on top of a hill than when you're stumbling around in a cave with a faulty flashlight and a very dim memory regarding the way out.

I mean, really. It's Perspective 101.

But I guess people who feel qualified to give that kind of advice are usually the ones who haven't been in a cave recently. Us cave dwellers realize that we aren't usually the best at giving uplifting advice.

And so I offer mine humbly and without pretense.

Stop trying to look forward all the time. Let your hope be abstract and your goals be gentle. Give yourself permission to savor the smallest moments of joy and peace.

Read a book in the sun. Dance to your favorite song when no one’s around. Take yourself on field trips to places you’ve never been before.

Don’t feel bad because you didn’t enjoy that party or this dance. Don’t beat yourself up for not liking “normal” fun. Your fun is okay. Your fun is excellent.

We cave dwellers are not hopeless, nor are we cynical for believing that we needn’t always have a perfect dedication to our futures. We have learned to reside firmly in the moment.

We have learned that it is staying in the moment, breathing the fresh air, is more beautiful than rushing from second to second with a furious ache for something to look forward to.

Tomorrow may be the best day of my life. It may be the worst. It will likely be another average day. But it doesn’t matter. Because today will never happen again, and today I will find my glimmers of sunlight as I ride the roller coaster of my own emotions through the highs and lows of just... being.

Today, right now, you must be. Be in your cave, on your hill, in your valley or forest.

In this moment, you are alive, and that is enough.

Winning.

OH MY GOSH YOU GUYS.

Here. Look at these numbers:

Stats as of 12:25 pm on Feb. 14th-- at time of posting, views for Feb. 14th exceeded 300.

What is going on? I don't even know how to comprehend these numbers. See, every time I post something (and subsequently share it on Facebook), I have this semi-rational fear that people will essentially react like this:

But so far, no one has, and I am grateful for that. People have even told me that they like my blog and that they read my blog. On the outside, I'm usually all like

Play it cool,  play it cool.

but on the inside, I'm like

I win the internet. 

The point here is thanks for not thinking that I suck. It's really sweet. I'll do my best to continue not sucking.

I also wanted to take a little time and talk about why I blog, because I know some of you stay up late pondering that question. Rest ye your weary minds.

I like to write. Before I started blogging (and after, sometimes), I spent a lot of time scribbling in a notebook, writing things that I thought were hilarious/witty/insightful/woefully self-indulgent. I kept them to myself, because I am secretly very shy.

Over time, I accumulated 50-ish of these passages. Some were short (less than one college-ruled page) and some (mainly the woefully self-indulgent ones) were more than 5 pages long. They were poems, song lyrics, stories, anecdotes, rants, rambles, complaints... some were even peppered with stick figures and took a comic format. Sometimes I go back and read them and I'm mildly horrified at what I thought was so amazing three years ago.

Anyway, I had pretty much decided that I liked to write, but that I never planned on writing in any public setting... until I found myself in a Creative Writing class durring my senior year of high school. My senior year was... hard to say the least. I found myself looking forward to CW everyday because I had a chance to just let go for 40 minutes and write whatever I wanted. It was pure therapy. My teacher was amazing, too, and managed to coax me into sharing some of my writing with the class.

I gradually got more comfortable with the idea that I have things to say and people will read them. I shared with the class, then with then-boyfriend, A, then with my dad, a few friends... and finally, I started blogging.

It was terrifying at first. After my first post went "live," I spent the evening constantly refreshing my stats page. Every single pageview was mind-wrackingly intimidating. I think I got 43 pageviews that whole week, which averages about 10 views for each of the four posts that went live that week.

Anyway, time went on, and less than a year later, new posts on The Epitome of Snark average 40-60 pageviews within the first 24 hours of posting. There are undoubtedly those among you that are not impressed by that statistic, but it kind of blows my mind.

For the curious of heart, here is a list of the Top Five TEoS Posts to Date:

1. Because Life Can Suck- September 20th, 2012: This was actually the first post that went up.
2. My Friendship/Dating Application- December 31st, 2012: Apparently, a lot of people wanted to know the qualifications for dating/being friends with me. 
3. Enjoy the Ride- October 22nd, 2012: A post about my dear grandmother who passed away on the day Enjoy the Ride posted.
4. You're Doing It Wrong: Flirting- September 23rd, 2012: Comical observation about the boys I'd met at college up to that point.
5. Facebook Questions!- December 4th, 2013: Your questions, my responses. Boom.

That's all I've got for today. I hope you all survived Valentine's Day with only minor cuts and scrapes to your body/ego/world-view. Keep on keepin' on, my lovelies.

x,

   g