Wednesday, January 1, 2014

the list that wrapped up 2013.

so i haven't blogged in a while.

but guess what? my one and only new year's resolution is to blog more. (i never make other ones. i'm never going to the gym. and i'll probably still watch just as much netflix.)

BUT THIS IS MY ANNUAL NEW YEAR'S POST

BECAUSE RIGHT NOW IT'S LIKE... TWO IN THE MORNING AND I'M A LITTLE BIT TIPSY AND IT'S TIME TO RECAP 2013 IN THE LIFE OF EMILY.

i was thinking about making this post when i couldn't fall asleep last night (my brother was loudly skyping his new girlfriend and giggling like a high school girl) and i focused on a lot of shitty things that happened.

like, ALL THE SHITTY THINGS. and i looked out of my window super philosophically at one in the morning and i was like

dude 2013 really sucked.

and then i scrolled through my iphone pictures and i smiled a bunch because i realised that 2013 didn't actually suck at all.

2013 was really effing awesome.

i don't want to focus on bad things. i mean, some of the stuff in this list will be bad. but you know what? every bad thing is a learning experience and such.

i'm already getting too sentimental. let's get into the top 50 things of 2013 for emily so we can bring in 2014 right.

WITH PICTURES!

THE LIST!

1. i went to the united kingdom for a whole month.



(honestly, my entire list could be all the cool shit i did in the united kingdom. but i'll try to tone it down.)

2. while in the united kingdom, i spent the weekend in edinburgh, scotland. which was gorgeous.

that's edinburgh castle. ON A MOUNTAIN.

3. while i was in edinburgh, i climbed arthur's seat, which is like a scottish mountain? and it was forty degrees and pouring down rain and i was in skinny jeans and toms and it was just all around a weird experience.

VICTORY SCREECH

4. i went to shakespeare's house. and his grave. and his wife's house. and that was pretty nifty.

his wife's house was prettier.
5. i watched the royal shakespeare company perform hamlet, as you like it, and titus andronicus in stratford, england.


6. i also saw three plays at shakespeare's globe in london: as you like it in georgian (which is a really cool language), the tempest where i ALMOST touched colin morgan, and king lear.




7. after watching the tempest for three hours in the rain, i became friends with a woman who i do not know the name of and she took me and several other friends of mine out to a bar and bought us all drinks and i got totally shit faced with a shakespearean actor and i honestly do not remember how i got back to my flat.

8. i took a day trip to cardiff, wales, and whilst there i went to the DOCTOR WHO MUSEUM AND THAT WAS REALLY SWEET.


9. after leaving scotland, i went to the city of york by myself and i spent the day back packing the medieval wall. after i back packed the wall, i went to york minster cathedral, where i have buried a large piece of my heart. and i worshipped there among strangers.





10. i climbed to the very top of st. paul's cathedral. (it was a lot of steps.)




11. i went to all these cool places at night.


that's westminster abbey.

that's buckingham palace.

and that's trafalgar square.

12. i saw some really cool paintings at the british national gallery and some cool mummies at the british museum and some hella old books at the british library.

13. i also went on the tube drunk at night and wound up at parliament.

drunk tube adventures.

14. i also went to canterbury cathedral which is like THEEEE CHURCH OF ENGLAND (and i was not drunk but i swear to god those french kids on a field trip were). 


15. all right, let's go back to the colonies. i got accepted to the sigma tau delta international english honourary convention with my poetry portfolio, hunting whales! (this is in portland, oregon, by the way.)

SUPER AWKWARD POETRY READING

16. my STD ladies and i went to voodoo doughnuts!


17. and we totally went to powell's books. ENGLISH MAJOR HEAVEN, KIDS.



18. ooops. i tore my meniscus.

THUG LYFE

19. i got to write my own vagina monologue. that was pretty neat.

20. i then got to perform my VERY OWN VAGINA MONOLOGUE ABOUT MY VERY OWN VAGINA in alma's performance of the vagina monologues.

that's me and lisa before our second performance.

21. i suddenly found that i could sing and i joined alma's chorale?

22. i went to fraternity run outs for the first time and i sure as hell repped that PMA SINFONIA.


23. my boyfriend of two and a half years broke up with me. which was royally shitty.

24. but i spent a lot of time loving myself and i understood why he broke up with me. which was really fucking freeing.

25. after joining chorale, i met this goofy kid, who quickly became one of my best friends. his name is adam.



26. AND NOW WE'RE DATING.

you can say it. we're cute.

28. on an epic journey to detroit, adam and i saw cold war kids in concert. THAT WAS TOTALLY UNREAL.



29. i went to the detroit zoo with my RA staff mates and i MET A LION.

meet is a relative term.
can you even see the lion?

30. i smashed open a watermelon with a baseball bat called the bitch blaster and let's be real, it was the most hoodrat shit thing i've ever done in my life.



31. at RA training, i presented about mental illness with my best friend barbara. and i shared my own story about having generalised anxiety disorder.


32. i realised that i wasn't where i needed to be with my anxiety and controlling it. so i went back to my therapist and got myself on anti anxiety medication. it was one of the bravest things i did this year.

33. i became a published poet in an online magazine. i'm a published poet.

34. i rode a camel. ya know.


35. in chorale, I SANG THE CIRCLE OF LIFE AND I CRIED BECAUSE IT'S MY FAVOURITE.


(guys my list has a video this year and you can totally find me in it wheeeee)

36. i also sang in my first ever festival of carols. that was pretty legit. and exhausting.

37. i went to a renaissance consortium. where too many kids liked beowulf.

i think this pictures sums up how weird that consortium was.

38. i became president of active minds at alma college. which was such an honour.

39. i went with my active minds executive council to washington DC!




40. WE WENT TO GEORGETOWN CUPCAKE.

BEST. CUPCAKES. EVER.

41. we did a stomp out stigma walk at the convention. i am slowly helping to stomp out the stigma surrounding mental health and mental illness.


42. i got this little guy to keep me company. his name is hamlet.



43. i danced on a stage with a bunch of drag queens. i really wish i had a picture of this.

44. I WENT TO OREGON FOR MY COUSIN'S WEDDING AND IT WAS REALLY BEAUTIFUL. and we went to crater lake and the oregon coast afterwards.




45. i reached one year pull free. and i'm still going strong. i have trichotillomania, but it does not have me.

46. my grandmother died. and i miss her. a lot.

47. i left my sorority, gamma phi beta, for personal reasons. but my sisters will always be my sisters.


48. i went to TWLOHA's heavy and light with annalise. it was a beautiful night filled with tears, laughter, poetry, and song. and when it was over, we went to lansing at one in the morning and danced on the steps of michigan's capitol.




49. and probably the greatest thing on this list, when i was in london...

i saw the lion king on broadway.


50. i lived.

this year it was a lot harder for me to do this. one of the simplest reasons is that i spent far too much time scrolling through my facebook and my twitter trying to find pictures for everything, and i didn't even get to put that i reached 20,000 tweets in here.

normally i have a hard time thinking of all the cool things that i did. i'll reach thirty-five and be like, uhhhhh is my life really this boring?

this year i actually went back, cut out some stuff and replaced it with more important things, and lumped some things together to make room for things that i had forgotten that were really important. and that means that a lot of cool things happened.

i really can't believe that last night i thought 2013 was terrible.

yes, parts of it were. i was in a two and a half year relationship and i wanted to spend the rest of my life with that person. i didn't think i could deal with him leaving me, and guess what? he left.

my grandmother died. and even though it was a long time coming and it was expected and in some respects it was almost a relief, i still miss her laugh and her smile. 

my anxiety really set me back. when i got back from england, things spiralled out of control and i'm still trying to get back to where i was. there were days where i had no emotions. there were times when i was so afraid to leave my apartment that i would vomit. there were times that i did not feel like a person and i could not function.

but everything is an experience.

yes, my two and a half year relationship ended. but i figured out why and i learned a lot about myself in the process. i became a better person. and i learned that i can move on.

i've learned so much about myself through my anxiety. what i can do, what i can't do, and what i think i can't do but actually can do. i talked myself out of a panic attack before it actually set in. i'm learning strategies. i'm becoming a better person and i'm becoming someone who won't be set back by her own mind.

and man, i wish i could describe all the cool things i did when i was in england, scotland, and wales. the pubs i visited, the churches i stepped in, the graves that i saw, the people i met, the places i went, the mountains i climbed, everything. just being able to be there for an entire month is just years of experience. 

everything is an experience.

i took a tumblr survey about 2013 the other day, and it asked me this question.

compared to this time last year, are you a) happier or sadder b) skinnier or fatter and c) richer or poorer?

and i answered it like this.

i am happier because i am understanding who i am. i am physically skinnier but spiritually fatter. i am poorer in money but richer in experience.

and that's been 2013.

(sorry this got all sentimental at the end. but 2013 really was a good year and i need to always remember that.)

LET'S BRING IT, 2014. GIVE ME EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT.