blue valentine.

Nothing lasts forever. We're born, we live, and we die. What happens after that, no one knows, and although we have no control over our birth or our death, we certainly have much to do with the quality of our lives while we're living. There's no such thing as "forever," at least in my mind, and that was one of my favorite parts of Blue Valentine--the acknowledgement of the idea that we live and love in the moment, but that's all we can do. We don't know what the future will hold, so how can we control it, or pretend to think that we know what will work 30 years from now? We don't, and we won't. I'm quickly learning that it's all about living in the moment. I know we all have our share of bad days, but it's about trying to see what we don't like and taking it upon ourselves to fix it. It's easy to let the negativity get to us, and much too easy to let it overwhelm us. I'm incredibly guilty of this, but I'm trying to fight back.

Today I was talking to my boss, complaining about the last few days. They'd been pretty shitty, to be honest--thesis-ing is stressful (as much as I love my topic, it's a bit daunting), and add lots of work, root canal recovery, hundreds of pages of complex reading, a 3 hour silent film about white supremacy (watched for a race & film class, mind you) and an unexpected break-up to the mix and you've got all the makings for disaster. "But you know," I said, "life goes on and all that jazz." My boss made a comment about admiring my positive attitude, and it caught me off-guard. Me, positive? When did that happen? The truth of the matter is, I was always a negative kid. It would drive my parents crazy how I would always find *something* to complain about or be upset about. But, reading through my past few blog posts and my own personal journal, I realize that I've made a complete 180 in terms of the way I look at the world. It's been a slow process, but all of the sudden I am finding the best in everything around me. Dumped unexpectedly? It sucks, definitely...BUT, I am super busy with my thesis/last semester of undergrad...and who wants to be tied down when I've got the world ahead of me? There's always a silver lining. It was what it was, and it was lovely while it lasted, but it's over and that's that. Time to move on, focus on my research, my future, and my life. My friend Morgan and I were discussing this over mimosas at La Note and decided that this is going to be known as "Fresh-Start February," a clean slate to start over with. As President Bartlet would say, "What's next?"


Speaking of my thesis, I'm writing it on the Internet, identity, and privacy--why do people post what they post, and how does this determine the image they want to give off to the world? Obviously, I don't have an answer yet, but in terms of myself, I've always found that writing is the most therapeutic way to deal with the world. The reason I post is that I hope that someone will read this and find that my words help them through a similar situation, or that they feel that they have an ally in the world, even if only on the Internet.