Splatter paintings and forever.

At some point in life that we come face to face with the reality that we don't really know all that much. We have this realization and then, with fear in the depths of our minds and hearts, wrap up the meaning of life into a neat little box and put a bow on top for good measure. 

With a large portion of the country, I've recently started watching a new show called This is Us. The tone of the show is hopeful, but doesn't shy away from the complexities that come with life, relationships, aging, and race. And along with so many others, from the first episode, I was hooked. 

It's human nature to try to predict what will happen and then want to get comfortable. We like to plan the unplannable. But sometimes not knowing can be beautiful. It can be a splatter painting that shows us a larger network of things becoming one, experiences merging, and life beginning and ending in one forever. And "what if we're all in the painting... everywhere?" 

It doesn't refuse death and it doesn't glorify life, but it is beautiful and comforting and messy. 

The writing in this clip (and this whole show) is intoxicating, yet simple. I recommend watching both. 

 

New Things!

I just told someone the other day that the reason I like writing so much is that it is challenging. On some days, I wholeheartedly identify as a writer. On other days, it doesn't come naturally and I have to push to get something to what I consider even semi-good. I suppose I like both types of days but for very different reasons. Mostly, I know that I write my best when I get out of my head and don't overthink things, which also feels good but is very difficult to do, so add that to the list. 

This summer has been one where I have been very in my head and thinking way too much about anything and everything (cue that song I heard on the way home today about thinking too much which after looking up I don't actually think means what I thought...). As a result, my blog posts have been what I feel like are various forms of a personal pity party that pains me to read back the next day after I have already hit Publish. After every post, I consider deleting it, but then settle for simple edits because I have already committed to it and damn it, my pity parties are part of my life too! 

Well, I'm tired of that. It's not creative. It's not me. And it's not good writing. It doesn't make me happy and it doesn't push me any further. 

So it's fall (almost) and it's a time that for nearly twenty years of my life has signified new beginnings, so why should this year be any different. So here are the new things, for the sake of trying to write things that I actually like. 

NEW THING #1
This is a blog dedicated to telling stories. From my life or from people I meet, etc. No more existential bullshit, lady. 

NEW THING #2
This is a blog where I write letters to people in my life. Maybe I tell them, maybe I just wait for them to stumble onto my page sometime when they google their own name and suddenly find nice things I've written to them. Who knows. 

Why don't you just write these posts on this blog right here, Kate? 
Well, that doesn't sit too well with me because I want a new place to write to go with this whole new fresh start thing. I'll maybe post one here every so often. 

So there you have it. These are the new things I am going to do. 

Comfort and Growth

I'm so lucky to have a friend like Izzy that is a kindred soul, just graduated living in Portland and dreaming of New York. It's been almost three months since we graduated now, which is apparently about the time it takes getting comfortable doing anything. I remember by my second term in college I began to feel comfortable despite the massive change, and now that I'm back home, it has taken about the same amount of time to get comfortable in my routine of doing almost everything that I wished I wasn't. 

Izzy and I had a conversation about this the other day when we were getting a drink – where we have many revelations about our lives and our journeys toward where we think we want to be – and to us, the comfort that we are starting to feel is scary. Fear is not always something you associate with comfort, but for us it represents complacency and worry that we won't keep pushing, won't keep moving forward. To me, that is almost more scary than failing ... settling into a life that I know I don't want. 

I don't need my life to be comfortable right now, and simply put, I would rather it not be. Ask me again in another ten years and there's a good chance that my mind will be made up in the exact opposite direction, but for now, I'm ready to be living in a new place where I don't know anyone, doing things I have never done, and probably living paycheck to paycheck. I'm pretty sure I will change as a person more in the next ten years than any other decade in my life. And I want to make that change worthwhile. 

Idea booking and mood boarding

I've been working in my idea book a lot lately and have just been creating whatever I feel like. I used to do this with magazines a lot when I was a kid and make designs and collages a lot and something just made me want to do that again. It was really interesting because as I looked through the magazines of all types, I looked at the ads and read a ton of lines that were really clever and some that I didn't prefer and started noticing trends of what kinds of ads were in what types of magazines. No huge epiphanies or anything, but it was interesting and got my mind moving. 

Isn't It Funny.

Have you ever met someone and instantly clicked with them? Been able to talk like old friends even though you've only known them for about 15 minutes? 

I was just thinking about a friend that I just made right before we both graduated. Our friendship really only lasted about three weeks before we both departed from our college town and really weren't all that broken up about not being in each other's lives anymore. Our friendship really was just a blip on the lifetime friendship radar after all. 

I had a not great first impression of this person that I'm pretty sure they didn't even know I had because it was from an overheard conversation. But when I actually talked to the person, it was so comfortable and like we had known each other forever. 

This is one of my favorite things in life. And also what gives me incredible hope and excitement for my future in hopefully a new city with a new life awaiting me. I hope I meet many more people like this. 

Receipt of the Summer (so far)

No regrets: 

$24 at Taco Tuesday, mostly because of the great company, but also because of tacos and tequila. 

$15.99 on Lemonade. Have listened to enough to make up the cost. 

$10 to split the bill on a perfect first date. 

$25 to fill up my gas tank on every trip back and forth from Portland to Eugene, without which I would not be relatively content.  

$28 a month for a gym membership, providing both fitness and sanity. 

$40 on drinks with a friend that provided reassurance that was actually worth as much as our fancy drinks cost. 

 

I wish I had this money right about now: 

$4.50 on the Dutch Bros that I could've lived without. 

$22.50 on Chinese food delivery, a choice purely based on craving and laziness. 

$6 on a parking meter that I didn't get back to in time, which led to a $30 parking ticket. 

$15 on the outing that I realized we weren't really having fun anymore. 

$3 probably on McDonald's at some point.

$8 on the camera strap that I didn't really need and haven't even put on my camera yet. 

Dear Hillary Clinton

I just watched your speech in which you made history.

You have led the way for millions, impacted lives everywhere, and will be a part of shaping our country and our history – the history that our children and our children's children will soak in and in turn be able to reflect on when making our country better themselves.

Thank you for never giving up. Even when there are people who have been against you from the start, not because of policy, but because you are a woman. Thank you for proving them wrong, for you and for all of us.

Thank you for changing. While some criticize inconsistency, we should recognize that to be a great leader you must be adaptable and willing to change. You must be able to admit wrongs and forge on to create rights. And you have. 

Thank you for dedicating your life to this country and being a role model for women everywhere... and for everyone really. I hope girls and women, mothers and daughters, all around the country listened to your impassioned words and thought to themselves– just as I did tonight – "Someday I want to be like her." To be a leader of change and to help others as much as they can for as long as they can.

Thank you, Hillary.
I'm with you. 

The Opposite of Loneliness

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There are so many feelings that surround college graduation. In the past several weeks, I have felt so incredibly happy, loved, accomplished, welcome. But in the same several weeks, I have felt the inverse of all of those things with equal and heavy force. These emotions are pushing and pulling like I've never experienced before. 

It's hard to stay afloat. Yet, that is exactly what you must do. In this sea of uncertainty, you have to conjure up your own life rafts and then hold on to them for dear life. Because really, what is the alternative? 

There are two things I remember from the many speeches on graduation day. The first: in all likeliness, everyone you're sitting next to, laughing with, celebrating with... they were all strangers just a few years (or less) ago. The second: Living in the future connects you with anxiety and living in the past connects you with depression, so live in the moment.

These are the mental life rafts that help me back to safety when loneliness and fear nearly win out over logic. 

I have just started reading a book by the same name as this post, with writing from Marina Keegan, a writer who passed away shortly after she graduated from Yale a few years ago. If that is not motivation enough to live in the moment, her writing is intensely beautiful and the introduction to the book captured the essence of college graduation so well that I want to share. Because what is a good writer if they can't pay homage to other's writing that makes the heart flutter and ache all in one go: 

We don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that's what I want in life. What I'm grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I'm scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow after Commencement and leave this place. 

It's not quite love and it's not quite community; it's just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it's four A.M. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can't remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats. 

Yale is full of tiny circles we pull around ourselves. A cappella groups, sports teams, houses, societies, clubs. These tiny groups that make us feel loved and safe and part of something even on our loneliest nights when we stumble home to our computers – partnerless, tired, awake. We won't have those next year. We won't live on the same block as all our friends. We won't have a bunch of group texts. 

This scares me. More than finding the right job or city or spouse, I'm scared of losing this web we're in. This elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness. 

Peace for her lies in possibility, which she says we must not let go of. This will be another thought that I cling to in the coming weeks. Because possibility is abundant, everywhere, and is only limited by what you make it. 

In the absence of religion, I believe:

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Things happen for a reason, and a lot of the time that reason is hard work and ambition. Sometimes it's just luck and timing. And sometimes, it's just what you need to tell yourself in order to get by. 

Curiosity can be found anywhere, even if you have to really look for it. 

Sometimes work that doesn't benefit you directly benefits you the most. 

There's no right course for life, and if you look for one, you'll waste a lot of time. 

Family comes in all forms. Regardless of where it is found, cherish and nurture it. 

Whenever we look back,

we know that things turned out okay. 
That we shouldn't of worried, 
And shouldn't have thought certain thoughts
that led to questions
that led to long sighs
and moments of deeper introspection
than anyone ever really needs.
I can look forward and know that these things will be true
but time doesn't work that way
and neither do emotions. 
Out of our control, 
but controlling us always. 
 

New York.

I arrived in New York a couple days ago, and it's surprising how natural it feels to be here. Over the last couple of years, I've traveled fairly well...to cities across the country, big and small – Lexington, Milwaukee, Omaha, Seattle, LA, San Antonio. It doesn't seem scary or daunting to be somewhere so new, but exciting and interesting. I've learned how to be in so many different places, to not get flustered or stressed by travel, but to absorb and experience. Being here, only for a few days, reassures that this is the right city for me right now. 

It's been truly amazing these last couple days letting my curiosity grab hold of me and experiencing something outside my normal realm. I've lived in Oregon my entire life and it's time that I get a new perspective. I'm too comfortable in Oregon. Even the biggest city in Oregon seems small and familiar from corner to corner now. 

I'm so ready to move. Not in a I-can't-stand-it-here-anymore sort of way because I really do love Oregon in pretty much every way, but in an I-crave-a-new-adventure sort of way. 

 

In passing:

I like to walk to class and people watch on the way. I notice if they're smiling, look in a hurry, what they're wearing. I wonder if they snoozed a couple times too many that morning or are done with their day before it even begins. I try to figure out what type of people they are and how they feel about life. 

Then sometimes I wonder -- if I can wonder so many things about someone with just a passing glance -- what do people think when they see me?