No one reads this blog. Not even me. But it occurred to me the other day that this year marks ten years of me keeping a comprehensive journal, and this fact seemed worthy of a pubic post. To be fair, I've been keeping a journal for more than a decade; my high school journal was wiped out when our computer crashed during my junior year. I also kept hand-written travel journals before then (though those are quite juvenile). I thought, to commemorate this milestone, I would post snippets from my journals from each year.
2006
10pm–so I realized that solitaire teaches you lots about life. when you start out, you can stare at the board for hours planning your initial moves, but once the game gets going, its all about the hidden cards. you don’t know what’s under them, and you can’t plan out every move. you have to go with what you are given. sometimes you’re dealt a string of cards you just can’t use, and you get discouraged. but then that one card will come along, and everything will fall into place. sometimes you will blatantly miss a move, and not realize it until later. sometimes you wonder whether it would have worked out better if you had moved a different stack of cards, but you can’t waste time thinking about it, because you have to deal with the choices you make, and what is dealt to you.
2007
OK Amy’s wild-side is out. My life is the biggest mess I’ve ever experienced, and at the same time, I’m loving it. I’m living for once. I’m actually alive, feeling, breathing, living. This is what life is about. The mistakes, the foibles, the chaos. Instead of freaking out, I’m going to analyze how or if what I did is wrong, and from the ruins, try to figure out a feasible solution. That’s all I can do at this point, cuz there aint going back now.
*******
“It became clear to him that he should not search for his place in the world, for he was himself the world, equally great and equally unique. But he studied on, for he hoped that if he knew the world, out of its image his own would look back…”
sometimes I can’t help but think that life is absurd. completely absurd. speeding down the roads with the sun roof open and the radio blasting emo music – I love you, I miss you – and me, singing along, bursting into tears, wanting to love like I once knew, but now cannot. or can I, but am I afraid. who knows. I realized though, that I don’t regret what I do, like I did last year. last year I kept regretting not taking full advantage of what I had. this year, I haven’t had that problem in the slightest. so things have improved in that matter. still, I want to love you. I want to shine, to radiate, to be PURE in heart and at peace in my mind. is that ever possible? perhaps. I just need to know when and how. maybe I’ll never know, but I have to trust and believe and…
2008
My tongue burns, even though I haven’t started drinking the Earl Grey tea I just brewed. The water boiled without my consent, hissing and bubbling despite the low setting I put in on. It must have been my negligence. Yet after all, it’s just water, just a bit of tea. I’ve been living here in Ann Arbor with J now for a while. Oh I went home last weekend for a break, I suppose it should be called. The whole experience has become more of an experiment, a trial at times; I’m becoming weary of it though. Next week I want to spend at my own home, with my own mother and my own memories. It will be a challenge, reverting to normality, but that’s part of the whole game. Pain, suffering, scabbing, learning, all rolled into one life.
*******
Life, although short, is slow. There are moments, ephemeral, of great inspiration, of reeling activity, of deepest turmoil. For me that is now — my mind is alive and bursting with energy. Yet I know that the universe slugs along, slowly and with cumbersome resilience. There is passion in me now, a great passion. A passion for life and for love, a passion for truth and a passion for wisdom, but not foolish wisdom. My mind yearns for fulfillment and my heart longs to be opened and released. What is this well of emotion, this depth of energy, from where does it come? I think no more of earthly things, of material problems, no not even of work or things to do. Everything is in a higher dimension. My mind is functioning on a different plane. Suddenly the work and the activity have a more profound purpose, no longer a stolid and stagnant routine. I’m doing something for something—is that God? God, is this you?
2009
Woke up and worked in the TD library. Breakfast followed by coffee, a splendidly spontaneous email from D, and several biochemistry lectures later, lunch. A brief meeting with my project mentor, which was much shorter than I anticipated, and now I’m back in TD library, without internet access, trying to direct my racing mind. After lunch, before “lab” meeting, I was in my room and decided to lie down for a bit, not really thinking. My body was exhausted! My mind continued to race and think and chatter away, but my body just completely gave in. I only rested 10 minutes though, because Karen came back and my door was wide open. Yes, I’m ashamed of sleeping midday. I wish I lived in Mexico. That siesta idea is the best I’ve ever heard of.
*******
I’m listening to Brahms 3rd symphony while studying statistics. Bliss. Except now I am writing here, which is even more blissful. I’ve spent the day in the library again, since 6:30 this morning. I’ve gotten quite a bit done, but not enough (it is hard to get enough done). I went to get sushi at the law school, which was a pleasant change, and I have a stat review session from 3-5 today, followed by dinner with Stephen and ushering Philharmonia concert (with D).
*******
Where to begin! I have been at my computer too much, writing too much (not what I need to write) lately. First of all: biochemistry. Long, difficult, and just the way I like it. I did the best I could, and I felt sufficiently prepared for most of it, and really that’s the best I can do. Afterwards, hung around Kline library working on typing my project. Headed back to TD library and camped out there after taking a shower. Grabbed dinner and went back to work. Had extra coffee on hand. Went to math tutor around 9 pm, and he was somewhat helpful, in an abstract way. Worked and worked and worked. Around 2 am I took a 30 minute power nap (funny, when you’re up at that hour, you’re exhausted but it is still difficult to fall asleep. Plus I was still thinking about biochemistry). Went back to typing. So many people just studying in the library! It was rather insane. If I had a 9 am final, I would not be staying up until 3 or 4 am studying for it the day of. How do they stay awake during the exam? I don’t get it. At around 5:30 am I crashed in one of the chairs in the top floor of the library and slept until about 7 am, then went frantically back to work. I submitted it around 9 am. I have no idea what I wrote, or what I said, or whether it made any sense. At 9:30 went to sleep and woke up at noon, grabbed lunch, tried to study but was so fatigued, went back to sleep for another hour. But I’m just giving a play-by-play; what you are missing is the extreme nature of such an event. I was so tired during the night. Those wee hours are excruciating. I felt nauseous, probably from too much coffee, sick to my stomach, had a headache, yet was still able to type and think somewhat decently. I guess it has to do with our nature, that we can push our limits from time to time.
2010
Okay journal, you have become my new means of procrastination. After successfully downloading a website blocker for firefox (limiting my access to facebook, hulu, and other addicting pages) and establishing appropriate settings, I am now looking for new means of distraction. Dammit, I wish I could just be outside. Yes, it’s obscenely hot out today (according to weather dot com, it is ninety three degrees, but it “feels like” one hundred and one. Can you imagine?) The world cup game comes on at 13.30, which I presume will provide ample distraction for my cohort. As for me, I’m debating whether to go on a walk after work. Pro: gets me out of the house, gets me active, provides non-technological means of distraction, might actually prove alleviating to my mood. Con: it’s hot outside, I’m tired. Gee, seems like the pros outweigh the cons, and yet I’m still leaning towards no. I’m sure you are wondering why I would obsess over such triviality. Why not just be spontaneous? Make a decision when the time comes? Yes, this is true, and yet somehow this bantering allows me to pass the time more quickly, which is imperative, given my state of work and my current indecision.
*******
2011
I told myself that I would stop writing. That it was futile, that I needed to live in experiences rather than words. Really though, I was hurting. I still am. I am absolutely terrified to go read what I had written in the past several months. My heart is still broken, shattered, and weary. Reading those words, those thousands and thousands of words, will only cut me deeper. Writing this is doing that too, but less so. I am reminded of a Rilke poem, with the line “If drinking is bitter, turn yourself into wine”. If writing is painful, turn yourself into your words. I am striving, day by day, to live the life that I think is best. To enjoy simplicity, to find subtle beauties, to cherish small moments, to love in a way that is gentle yet strong. I am heartbroken, I know that, but even so I am trying to live it out fully.
I’ve been thinking a lot more too about what I want to do next. I am just so enthralled with music and the process of music-making and music-sharing right now, that I feel impassioned to make that a part of my life. I think a lot about Tina and Netta, and how they were able to create something together to bring music to children, and how wonderful that is. If I could do that someday, I would be a very happy woman. Part of me wonders whether this is fleeting – or sustainable – but really, how can I predict such things? All I know is that this is how I feel now, and how I have felt actually for quite a while. Music has always been part of my life, to some degree or another.
*******
2012
Honestly, my life is wonderful, yet I grow weary of it. Not in a day-to-day sense, but in an existential way. It is something I should not bother writing about, because over-thinking such issues leads to a lot of hot air and not much decisive action. Perhaps writing it down here will serve as documentation for an older Amy (or an unsuspecting reader) for future guidance – or maybe just to laugh at my naïveté. Either way. Perhaps it will just float into obscurity and be destroyed by the vastness of the universe. At this point I’m apathetic to all creative output.
I’m still writing, in part because my phone died from lack of battery, and in part because I really want to hit this home. This happiness, pumping in me, through me. Remember it, please! I know how you fluctuate and get frustrated, confused, and down-trodden. Don’t. Don’t do it for this very reason: because when you do, you belittle what is real, what is tangible, felt, experienced. What you feel in those moments of doubt is fabricated and false. You make up anger and dissatisfaction out of fear and insecurity. It is a hopeless and deprecating reaction. Please don’t do it.
*******
2013
Mistakes. Make good mistakes. The goal in life is to be defeated by greater and greater things. Mindaugas. I miss him. He was such a beautiful mentor to me. If only I could sit down and talk with him, if only but for a couple of hours! It would give me so much peace. Yet somehow, when I envision what that would be like, I see him struggling with some of the exact same problems, the exact same questions, but being more at ease with them, more accepting of the unanswerability that they require. Love the questions themselves…says Rilke. I need to learn how to let go and do that. Age and experience won’t get me the answers. Maybe a bit more peace and acceptance, but not answers. So…there we have it. Keep on plugging away. And reading. And loving.
On the bus back to NYC, listening to Josh Ritter, my new favorite song (sent to me by MM). I wish I could convey how much joy I get from receiving an email from him. It’s like getting a hand-written note, but one that has been beautifully crafted, well though-out – and even more so, he has read what I suggested that he read (Kunderas, poetry), and it’s almost as though we are in a mini-class together, but rather this class is called “life” and we are just trying the best that we can to integrate literature and philosophy and meaning and our own existence.
We get so caught up with the notion of needing to do something that we so often forget that sitting, looking, breathing, existing are all amazing forms of doing something. To just be is as miraculous as anything.