stressed? depressed?

i'm not going to lie, this post is mainly geared at me. but i'm going to pretend that somebody else is reading this post and that somebody else needs this post so that i can give myself the advice that i would give them.

1. it doesn't matter what the truth is
a lot of people will tell you that nobody talks about you behind your back as much as you think they do and you'll still know that they do indeed. they'll say that no one gives a damn about when you mess up or do something embarrassing, but some people might. the thing is, though, you don't know, and you won't, and over thinking other people's feelings for you is one of the worst things that you can do. maybe some days you look awful and disgusting and repulsive and some days you're the hottest and people always comment on days of the first sort about how bad you look and you don't know whether you're actually attractive or not. it doesn't matter. and maybe you could get your shit together and "get over" your anxiety, and maybe you aren't "trans enough" but IT DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER OR NOT THE SHITTY THINGS LIKE THAT THAT YOUR BRAIN SAYS ARE OBJECTIVELY TRUE OR NOT. you can make them your own equivalent of false if you refuse to acknowledge them, and you'll be much happier for it.

2. you are not the same person or in the same place that you were five minutes ago
calm down. chances are that nothing is happening at the current moment. your life is moving forward and so is everyone else

3. you are not "the sort who doesn't make it"
nothing nothing nothing about you (personhood-wise) is different from any other person and you could be anybody else and that's both relieving and terrifying but it means that there is no reason that you can't become any sort of person who you want to. you weren't born without the qualifications to be a good person or a good friend or mentally stable or successful or likeable.

4. there is some part of you that loves yourself
sometimes i feel REALLY repulsed by my existence and i want to rip myself out of my body and be as far away from myself as possible but the things about me that i hate are mostly not actually me- it's things that i've said/done wrong- and really, i don't entirely hate myself. i know that sometimes i feel incredibly happy to be me. but when i'm really depressed, i convince myself that those moments never happened. remember that they did.

lastly,

5. you are functional
you are still functioning, so by definition.... i know i KNOW i know that it's easy to think that you are the most screwed up unstable and hopeless person in human existence, but you aren't. you can do it.


i love you <3

-lem

coming of age

experimenting w/ high iso to make my images look like they were taken on film. i'm so sorry.

//one of my very favorite feelings is that of feeling like i'm in a movie. when everything is aesthetically perfect, and i can hear my own imaginary indie soundtrack playing in the background and, just like that, i'm no longer me. the only way that i will ever believe that being is in the present is the way to be is when i believe that there's some director of the cosmos that has decided that this moment of mine is important and deep and should be shared. for years, i thought that this feeling was something that only i felt, until i heard "this house is a circus," a really deep work of art by the arctic monkeys that starts with such poetic lyricism as "this house is a circus, beserk as fuck." yup. near the end though, there's a line that goes "aimlessly gazing at the faces in the queue, and we're struggling with the notion that it's life, not film" which is possibly my favorite lyric of all time. it's the essence of being a self-centered, pretentious, but human teenager, isn't it? not really doing anything, but being unable to shake the feeling that the moment means something cosmically.

//i get so excited about mapping out aesthetics for imaginary movies that i'll never make, particularly the sort of movies that can only be described as my own weird sort of wish-fullfilment literature (i.e. Meet Lemon, an angsty manic pixie who is searching for love and meaning in this stark, restricted color palette world. They lead a very challenging life with much adversity, and will make you feel sorry for them, despite the fact that their parents, love life, and motivation/productivity is infinitely better in this film than in the true story that it's "based" off of. Soundtrack by The Smiths, the Strokes and Alex Turner, the last of which also plays the love interest.) so, naturally, my spotify is full of playlists with titles like "(enter blank imaginary movie) soundtrack". here's one that i made a while back that i feel really summerizes the feeling of trying to convince yourself that you're the subject of a film, uploaded to 8tracks for your listening pleasure:

it's life, not film from youareuniverses on 8tracks Radio.