Treasure Chest

Those that know me well, know that I'm a very sentimental person. I keep wrappers, hand-written notes, ticket stubs and receipts from things like the snacks I bought from a petrol station on the way out of Cape Town at 4AM while witnessing a drunk girl scream at the staff that her boyfriend was, in fact, not her boyfriend.

Let me get to the reason that I do this. 

When I was like 8 or 9 (maybe older) I would wonder why I couldn't remember everything on a day to day basis. For instance, being able to recall any exact moment from the previous week. Not general happenings, but very specific things. Say I would be brushing my hair and think, “OK, next week at this time I am going to remember this exact moment,” and then I would try and clear my mind and stroke my hair with my brush and try to burn that moment into my mind so I would be able to recall it. 

And of course, because this is a ridiculous notion, I wouldn't remember to remember what I said I would and the next week would go by and I’d get all cross with myself the next time I had one of these existential moments and I'd swear to myself I would remember whatever it was this time. What was most frustrating to me was that I could remember seemingly 'bigger' things such as the taste in my mouth when I hit my head on my desk retrieving my rogue pencil. 

As you are now probably well aware, I am slightly obsessed with capturing moments. Moments, whether huge and important or small and comfortably significant, only live for as long as those moments last and then they become memories, destined to exist only in our minds. Memories are extremely fragile little things that are susceptible to the taint of time and can become warped or, worse yet, forgotten when our minds grow dark. I like to make sure that this won't happen to me.

So my wallet is jam packed with random things and bits of paper that each keep a particular memory alive in my mind every time I look at them. I have items of jewellery that serve the same purpose, as well as books, pens, letters, key rings, shoes and even a pair of plastic googly eyes. I don't hoard things by any means, in fact I function in quite the opposite way, but when it comes time to spring clean or clear out old stuff I no longer use or wear, there are things that have survived many a chuck. These are the the little things that help me remember what matters to me: the precious moments.

"I just have a lot of feelings..."

Having been a design student in my fourth year last year, I had to hand in a massive portfolio at the end of the year. That meant 4 weeks of straight work. From 9AM to 6PM and then from 8PM to the wee hours of the morning. I still shudder at the thought.

At the time I didn't really have the time to think about this year. And whenever I did it made me really anxious for some reason. This frustrated me to no end because I'm not generally an anxious person but change seems to bring that out in me. I went home after the year was done and still didn't really process the fact that I was done with university. I then went overseas for 3 weeks and didn't think about it and when I got back it all just hit me in the face.

I was done with university, I was still unemployed, I would be moving to another city in 3 days and I didn't even have my best friend (AKA my boyfriend) with me to help me take it on. And of course, panic set in. The thing that frustrates me the most about being panicky and anxious is that I know it is so silly and that everything will work out perfectly in the end. And if it doesn't, then I will make a plan. I always do.

Eventually I decided that I needed to let myself be miserable for a bit, let it out, get over it, splash some cold water over my head and get on with life. Because it sure as hell isn't going to stand still for some little hissy fit.

Most of the time our emotions are valid, for whatever reason. If you're feeling anxious about something, it's probably because you are anxious about something. Same goes for being sad or angry. However, we cannot let our lives be put on hold so that we can wallow in our feelings. Not doing anything about the situation you are anxious about is not going to make it go away. It's going to make you feel way worse. It may feel good for a day and half but trust me, if you have any drive at all, you will start feeling very frustrated with yourself.

Life is not fair and it will not stand still for us while we have an existential crisis (although that would be nice - I mean it's the least it could do). Being strong in the face of adversity (and I'm not saying I'm facing adversity right now) is a skill that I hope everyone is able to hone.

A thought I saw on a friend's Facebook wall earlier today: "The sun always rises and is always beautiful." And it is. You have to get up and do the thing everyday otherwise you will miss out on cool things and that will suck.

So I think that ending my posts with a song is fun because what better way to express my feelings (cue Mean Girls feelings quote) than some music?

All praise be to Brendon Urie.

I know it's cheesy. Please deal with it.

Kbye

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