Someone died yesterday

Someone I've never met whose name is in my diary and whom I saw from a distance died yesterday.

Someone I've never met whom I saw from a distance died yesterday.

Someone I've never met died yesterday.

Someone died yesterday.

Why is it that no matter how many steps removed I may be from someone, the pain of their loss hits so hard?

I've thought about death a lot since I was a child. I had no choice. At 15, I lost my mother before anyone else I knew had died. I still have not fully reckoned with her passing. I don't expect myself to ever truly be at peace with it.

That makes sense. No one would fault me for never fully recovering from the traumatizing loss of a parent at a young age. But why is it that I cry even for the dead I've never met?

One year ago, I was sitting and watching a swing band perform. I saw this band often, their live music a salve to my stress and a way to discover "new" old music. When I became indefinitely stuck at home, I turned on their music to remind me of the beautiful ordinary moments of the before times.

I never met the leader of the band, but his crooning radiated through my body from loud speakers on Saturday nights. His titular band's name featured in my diary entries. His voice filled my room for a year to remind me of home when home no longer felt homey enough.

Why would I miss someone I have never met? Why would I think about them and worry about the children they left behind and the legacy they won't continue to build?

An entire year has passed spent thinking of the people I will never meet. Whether I knew them well, saw them from across the room, passed them without noticing, or never inhabited the same space at all, they existed. Existed with an -ed. I lament that. I try not to beat myself up for it.

Death does not feel inevitable at any given moment. But when it arrives, the reality of it is inescapable. The sadness is all consuming. The lost potential is a heavy weight.

No matter how close or how far away it hits, it never hurts any less.

Want versus need

(Rachel Poletick)

As a child, I spent a lot of evenings out shopping. My mom — dedicated and overworked, often tired and looking to unwind — treated big box stores like a respite for us. After commuting home from work by train and picking me up from daycare, we rejoiced in our daily retirement by gallivanting long white aisles in celebration of American consumerism.

While we picked up odds and ends, my mom might ask me what I needed. New shoes? Underwear? A jacket to replace one that I’d lost?

I’d respond. Dolls? New gel pens? A colorful boombox to play my Aaron Carter CDs?

While for me shopping was a coveted opportunity to obtain the latest toys and clothing, for my mom trips to stores weren’t just for fun. They were a chance to breathe. A necessary break from thoughts — from life.

Since March of this year, I have been forced to sit with my thoughts more than ever before. Isolation, boredom and quiet all seem to breed a kind of hyper-focus. And with so many things missing, so much that I can’t have, I’ve had no choice but to reflect on what I want and need.

Being lonely and driving to a friend’s house for company. Want.

Feeling my body ache from being sedentary, then exercising to revive my sore muscles. Need.

Craving food and going out to my favorite restaurant for dinner. Want.

The distinction, while seemingly obvious, can be pretty hazy in practice. As a child, even more so. But for the first time in my life, I am starting to gain more clarity.

So what is the difference, then?

I want something because it is desirable. I need something because it is not negotiable.

But it’s even more complicated than that. Because for many of the things I want, there is a root need that must be addressed.

While being lonely and driving to a friend’s house for company is a want, I do need company when I am lonely. But that company doesn’t require me to visit anyone. I can call, or text, or video chat. My need is still met.

While craving food and going to my favorite restaurant is a want, hunger is a real need. But I don’t need to be at a restaurant to eat. I can make food, or I can get some take out. As long as I eat, I am meeting my needs, even if I am not quite getting what I want.

For me, shopping was simply a want. When I was walking those aisles, I could ask to buy what I desired. But if I didn’t buy a single thing, life would go on just the same.

For my mom, shopping felt like a need, but was truly a want. For her, it symbolized letting her hair down. And in that respect, if she’d denied herself the privilege, it might have made her life unhappier. But there were so many ways that my mom let down her hair — she watched mindless reality TV, crocheted beautiful pieces of art, rented every horror movie from Hollywood Video, cuddled with our cat. She did not need to shop.

We do not need to shop.

We do need peace. And comfort. And joy. And occasionally we also need to do something we want, even if it isn’t necessarily something we need.

Right now, I’m waiting to do the things I want. I wait out of respect for others, because my wants do not come before their needs. I wait out of respect for myself, because I believe in my strength and self control.

And I wait because waiting is something I need to do, even if I don’t want to do it.

20 per diem: How I really learned to play the piano

(Rachel Poletick)

Every once in a while a thought will pop in my head that sounds something like this:

Could I be a ballerina?

I look down my short frame at my tiny feet and try to cycle through the five ballet positions I learned in a beginner's dance class. Sometimes I even take the opportunity to prance around the room, pretending I'm on stage. I move with a reckless abandon that's usually reserved for kids up to age nine.

Then I come back to reality and remember that while my fantasies may quickly plop me on a stage in the middle of a performance of Swan Lake, reality may not be so kind.

Sub in just about any incredible talent that takes time and practice, and you begin to approach my dilemma.

Could I be a novelist? Could I be a marathoner? Could I be an artist? Could I be an actress? Photographer? Programmer? Comedian? Designer? Historian? Pottery maker? Lion tamer/clown/unicyclist?

As I cycle down the list, landing on a singularly desirable path becomes more and more unlikely. Instead I become trapped in a loop of possibilities.

So a few months ago I decided I would stop the madness. And I started playing piano.

The piano and I have had an on-again, off-again relationship for years. With a piano teacher for a father, my chance to learn and eventually grow into a virtuosic pianist was always on the table. At times I even toyed with the idea of focusing on the instrument. Yet something never quite clicked.

I would spend a few months on it and give up. Years would pass and I would try again, ending up starting back over from a more intermediate skill level because unlike riding a bike, the piano requires consistency.

The piano requires practice.

When I sat back at the keys recently, I quickly had the same realization. I was back to square one yet again, agonizing over my diminished recognition of chords and my inability to play through songs I'd memorized years before. I thought about walking away once more.

Instead, I listened. First to the music. Underneath each wrong note, I heard the right one in my head and searched for it among the keys. I played through and accepted warts and all. Accepting the screw ups allowed me to pride myself even more in the triumphs.

Second, I listened to my Dad. Play every day, he said. It seemed daunting, like forcing a square peg through a round hole. If I'm not good now, how will I ever be? I asked when I would ever witness the progress I craved. He advocated patience.

So I set on the task, spending at least 20 minutes at the piano each afternoon.

As the keys became friendlier, increasingly familiar with each passing day, I fell more in love with the piano than I had in my 20 years of sporadic playing. Why, though? Why now, at 24, am I finally seeing what seemed unfathomable at 10, or 14, or even 22?

I spent years assuming something about the piano, about all learned skills for the matter.

John Keats once wrote, "...if poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all."

In my inability to accept my beginner's status, I'd lived and died by this axiom. The way I saw it, the piano did not come as naturally to me as it did others. Instead of testing my theory, I believed it completely and without question. And I never improved.

What I discovered in returning to the piano for 20 minutes per day (give or take a few) was that the absence of perfection need not equal the loss of enjoyment. Prodigious talent may be sought after, but it is no substitute for hard work.

It is one thing to cast off a never-ending list of wishes, complaining to the unseen forces of time and motivation for your inability to make them come true. It is another to make an effort to see them through yourself.

If only 20 minutes a day can make a difference, perhaps those wishes aren't so far off.

Memento mori

In the Victorian era, hairwork (jewelry made with human hair) was a popular type of literal memento mori, used to preserve a small token of a loved one who had passed away. (Gordon McDowell / Flickr)

Memento Mori. "Remember that you must die."

I don't wish to send you off into an emotional downward spiral, but the translation of this Latin phrase has spun around my head, waltzed in one ear and out the other over the past few weeks. Besides being a humorous catchphrase on Dear Hank and John, my favorite (and probably the only) "comedy podcast about death," it is a sobering reminder of something we know every day, but choose also - in some ways - not to know.

This is how I treat the reality of mortality, but it is how I treat other realities too. The reality of loss, the reality of failure, the reality of fear. I cross out the remember in "Remember that you must..." and replace it with "Ignore all signs that you must [insert unpleasant thought here]."

But on occasion, willful ignorance is no longer possible. I have to see what's directly in front of me. Quite literally. Because, like so many, I keep relics of the past.

These are actual mementos, not-so-figurative remembrances of those unpleasant thoughts. Things like a college rejection letter, a ring from an ex-boyfriend, a handwritten note in the final days of a sick relative.

Once we have established positive associations with our belongings, it can be difficult to let them go. When we couple those positives with negative associations, however, it becomes downright impossible.

There is something poetic in the notion of bittersweetness, that we cannot think of a word to describe the feeling of simultaneous sadness and happiness, thus we must associate it with a much more palpable sensation: taste. I liken the experience of looking at a deeply meaningful yet tainted object to having a better than average cup of coffee. At first it reels you in with the taste of cream and sugar, that which can render the beverage tolerable. But there's also something soothing in the slow-to-arrive bitterness. It keeps you there, lingering on the flavor. On the duality of the experience.

Tonight I threw away some things because those tastebuds had been used to such great effect that they lost their appeal. Like that fateful day when I went from having Chex Mix every afternoon to having it next to never, I had to come to an unwelcome realization that my needs were changing. I had to give up what was tiring me out.

At what point do we say goodbye to sorrowful memories, and how do we accomplish it? I don't have an answer for this, and I think that is the most human dilemma. We cannot forget. We compare our capacity for memory to other creatures - describing it as gnat-like or using the saying "an elephant never forgets." Like physical mementos, memory can be a blessing and a curse.

As with the realities I choose to ignore, but cannot forget, there are objects in my life I have struggled to let go of, hiding them in plain sight so that I can pretend they aren't there while trusting that they are just the same. On some level, they ground me, reminding me of a tumultuous past. On another, they burden me with a constant hovering dread.

So today I let go. Not fully, that takes time. But in releasing some mementos, I have given myself the permission to feel things independently and without interference. Whether my mind can trash negativity as easily as my hands can, I don't know. I'm searching for that reality most of all.

Dear Dublin, a vlog

Visiting Dublin was like looking through anaglyph glasses. The city has these two very disparate sides, one of art and innovation and the other of trial and tribulation. Together, they form a three-dimensional city where a complex history begets a really inspiring present. Dublin is as beautiful as it is fascinating, and I hope my letter does it even an ounce of justice.

How does one fight with anxiety?

(Alice Donovan Rouse)

Yesterday sucked. Like, really really sucked. I went to bed feeling defeated. But I fell asleep anyway, because what else could I do?

Sometimes I feel so incredibly hopeless. Hopeless in my shyness. Hopeless in my inability to effect change. A single thought echoes in my brain: My world is so flawed and my impact is so small. Over and over just like that.

Maybe it is selfish to wonder, but I think about whether anyone else feels this way. This combination of a keen awareness of current events and the ensuing rampant anxiety.

Along the eternal carousel of misfortune that is the 24 hour news cycle, I become outraged, incensed, gobsmacked. My mind can't wrap itself around the reality that we live in such an unjust world, where equality is constantly disproven as an essential tenet of humanity. It is absurd, insulting to our intelligence as a species. I want to fight it, to rail against it.

And then I retreat.

I watch videos of protesters and I feel heartened, my faith leavened by their strength and commitment to the respectful challenging of authority. And then I am overwhelmed by a new thought: Why am I not there too?

FOMO is part of my daily routine, but it doesn't stop me from not doing things. I stagnate constantly due to a worse struggle: anxiety.

Where do the introverts and anxiety-ridden go to fight? I haven't found an answer to this yet. Even calling my senator is a step outside my comfort zone (though this graphic on how to call your representatives despite social anxiety really helped). Donating is one strategy, but can become challenging when you're a recent graduate without much expendable income. I have looked for volunteer roles at various organizations, but haven't followed through. Again, perhaps, out of some degree of anxiety.

How do I switch roles with anxiety, turning myself from its slave to its master? In what little or big ways can I make an impact and help motivate the change I want to see in my country and in the world? Can I go outside my comfort zone and not back down?

While many of my blogs are about finding answers on my own, I'm still looking for the solutions to these questions. I think I will continue to search and find them in the coming four years. I hope if you're like me, together we can funnel our dejection into finding purpose and making a difference. Fear should never keep us from speaking and acting out for what is right.

Every day is Holocaust Remembrance Day

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Germany.

There's a part of me that's always been missing. Sometimes it feels like there's a hole in my side. A small one, maybe just the size of the eraser on a pencil. But it's there. And I can't seem to get rid of it.

I grew up in several different worlds. One was Southern California, that sunny place of suburban neighborhoods, beach bums and Hollywood. Another was my Japanese grandmother's home, where I'd go to reconnect with my Asian identity, scooping up bits of language, culture and food. The other was my Jewish grandparents home in Florida, where I learned a smattering of Yiddish, tasted homemade latkes for the first time and was taught how to play Mahjong and Rummikub (which I swiftly forgot).

Little moments of family were the pieces of my life's puzzle, held together by quality time and self-reflection. So when I realized there was a missing piece, I just could not move past it.

Genealogy research can feel like digging through sand. You push past grain after grain to find a record that may be about your great-great-great-grandmother. Yet for all you know you could actually be building someone else's family sandcastle instead of your own (forgive me for the weak extended metaphor). Names are mis-transcribed, documents are lost and multiple people were named Sally Smith and born in 1909 (just an example).

I learned around 11 years old that one of my great-grandmothers immigrated to the United States from Europe. Unbeknownst to her, the timing of her relocation saved her from one of the largest mass genocides in known history. Her family's fate, however, neither she nor the rest of our family would ever know.

While it was unclear whether I would find anything, I set out to learn more about her and her family using my amateur sleuthing skills. Several years later, I have little to show for my efforts. Names of possible great-great-grandparents and great-great-aunts and uncles. Still, each of them is just a name on a page. Just a distant, ephemeral memory of a person.

Today (January 27th) is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On this anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, "the UN urges every member state to honor the victims of the Nazi era and to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides." I was reminded of the fact this morning, when a series of names began popping up on my social feed:

My name is Lutz Grünthal. The US turned me away at the border in 1939. I was murdered in Auschwitz pic.twitter.com/DyS8NXrk2P

— St. Louis Manifest (@Stl_Manifest) January 27, 2017

My name is Steffi Rosenfeld. The US turned me away at the border in 1939. I was murdered in Sobibor

— St. Louis Manifest (@Stl_Manifest) January 27, 2017

The @Stl_Manifest Twitter account began posting remembrances of Holocaust victims this morning - specifically those who traveled on the St. Louis transatlantic liner and were "turned away at the doorstep of America in 1939." Though some were able to seek refuge in Europe and survive the war, many lost their lives over the next several years at the hands of the Nazis.

These people have names. They had lives and stories. The former we know. The latter are less certain. And for some, even a name is hard to find.

While we fancy ourselves intelligent and forward-thinking as a species, humans have a history of treating each other's lives as simply disposable. Seeing the young faces, the familiar names that could belong to a neighbor or a friend from school, how can we not see these people for what they were? Us. They were us.

Each one of them left a hole in someone's heart. They are missed even when they are forgotten, because they live in the void of lost history. Their stories cannot be told.

Though the Holocaust may be the most famous genocide in history, it is not the only we should be thinking about. The reality of genocide is it is an on-going crisis that plagues us at this very moment. Right now, stories are being destroyed with every lost life. Simultaneously, a loud and rampant xenophobic minority serves as a constant threat to the collective safety of men and women worldwide. These truths cannot be ignored.

This is a time to reflect on the past, to consider the shattered potential of every lost soul. If you're like me, that reflection will become a daily thought, even if it's just a small one in the recesses of your mind. Do I have a long lost cousin in Poland? Hungary? Austria? How did their grandparents survive? Is this all just a pipe dream?

We can't fall victim to this us vs. them way of thinking. If you're reading this, then you have eyes. You have ears. You have a nose and a mouth and a heart and lungs. You speak a language, you might even speak many. You write, you ride a bike, you make dinner, you sing in the shower. You are a person. You. And them as well.

I feel a little piece of myself is missing because the people I lost - though I may not have known them personally - mattered. Just like you matter. They inform my life like my friends do, like my family, my pets, my teachers, my coworkers, that person who smiles at me as I walk down the street does. In their own unique way, they create potential even in their absence. Their stories are a mystery, they're hope, they're compassion, they're what has not been but can be.

This is a day of remembrance, but it should not be the only one. Our equality, our humanity and our lives depend on remembering our past and taking that knowledge into the future. Listen to the stories of survivors. Read the names of those who were lost. Reflect. Repeat.

What makes art matter?

Black on Maroon by Mark Rothko (Tate Modern)

Is the value of art in its creation or is it made to be consumed?

In college, I had to fulfill one philosophy class credit. I took the most seemingly interesting class I saw offered in the subject, simply titled "Philosophy of Art." Whereas I walked in hoping I'd have a chance to debate philosophies expressed through art, I must have misread the syllabus because from day one we were not asking "What does this artist mean?" but rather "Does what this artist means actually matter?"

The age of digital media has made artistic consumption like testing snack samples at Costco. We walk around mindlessly searching for something to taste. One small bite after one small bite, grabbing at will and without premeditation. We toss our used paper cups into trash bins, bypass the neatly stacked piles of the product we've just tried, and go about our day. It's the accumulation of the food samples that make for the experience, not the food itself.

Basing the value of art on a sampling audience is exhausting. The reality is that loyalty is not always guaranteed, and a captive and engaged audience is not so simple to come by in this age of infinite entertainment.

Given that, I have begun to ask myself more and more - "Does the audience actually matter?" The question brings me back to those days of discussing the true intent of art.

Value is not the only thing qualified by an audience, often intent is as well. All those books you read in high school and college? Do you think most of the authors were part of building the lesson plans around them? Were they able, once their work was out in the world, to dictate the interpretation so carefully that absolutely nothing was misunderstood in scholarly analysis?

I'm doubtful.

Every piece of art - of drawing, of writing, of song, of dance - is passed on like a message in the game Telephone (or Chinese Whispers, as it is referred to elsewhere). Once shared, it is run through mind after mind, changing at each step. Perhaps we succeed in understanding the artist's intent, the message being the same at the end of the game as it was in the beginning. Otherwise, we find ourselves drawing our own conclusions, our ideas no less valid yet somehow different than the original message.

When I think of my writing in these terms, it makes me hesitant to assess the quality of my work by the participation of an audience. Fame and success, or the ability to captivate people is a Costco snack, but not a whole meal.

The meal might just be the personal victory of making something in the first place.

Dear London, a vlog

Since my first trip in 2007, I have found myself repeatedly drawn back to London. On my most recent extended visit over a few months, I pulled out my camera whenever inspiration hit, and decided to write about that nagging desire to be and do everything in this beautiful city. This is my love letter to London.

Obamacare and the fear of uncertainty

Thank you, Covered California. (CoveredCa.com)

EDIT (1/12/2017): The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is being swiftly dismantled by Congress, and it could mean you or people you love will be unable to pay for health insurance in the near future. Now is the time to speak up to your representatives in Congress. I just made a phone call to my rep and it took less than a minute to state my opinion in favor of ACA. Find your congressman's contact information here.

Turning on the news this morning was an unwelcome wake up call. The night before was capped with an emotional farewell speech from President Barack Obama. Watching and hearing this man I helped elect in 2012 left me inspired as I arose from bed, only to have reality hit soon thereafter.

The transition from one president to the next is always a time of change, particularly when power transfers from one party (and thus one political ideology) to the next. After years of feeling represented by my government, I am acutely aware that my values are being and will continue to be compromised as we embark on the next four years together as a nation.

Usually I try to hold back these concerns in a public forum. Without a degree in Political Science and sans much of a background in reporting on political matters (save for a stint as an opinion writer on my high school newspaper), I don't always feel it is my place to voice my concerns about the future of the United States. I try to be an informed citizen. I read and watch the news on a daily basis. I make an honest effort to recognize my biased digital echo chamber, so I attempt to understand both sides by consuming news by those with whom I don't share the same ideology. Yet I am very aware that there are gaps in my knowledge and as a result I try to leave political reporting to political reporters.

However, in light of current circumstances, I cannot deny the feeling of dread and fear that is deeply held within me, and that I believe is no doubt felt by many of my fellow Americans - regardless of political affiliation. And I felt compelled to do what I do in moments of high stress and intense emotion: write.

I am one of many Americans who has benefitted from the Affordable Care Act - Obamacare, as it is known colloquially. Thanks to the subsidies provided by the ACA, I was finally able to adequately afford health insurance. My access to quality healthcare at a reasonable cost has given me the opportunity to access preventative care. Since signing up through Covered California, I have found a therapist who has helped me better understand my mental health. I have found an excellent women's health doctor who gave me tools to avoid the stroke and heart disease risk that run in my family. I have been able to see my primary care doctor at a low cost, meaning that a high deductible has ceased to be more scary than my health problems.

Obamacare, despite its many reported-on flaws (I, too, have struggled with increased rates in my renewed coverage), has been a savior for me in an uncertain time. Which is why the promise of repeal by the incoming administration without any stated viable alternative has become a constant source of anxiety.

My voice is one among many. I know I do not stand alone in my concerns. My fears are small against many who suffer from worse health conditions than I have experienced. They pale against those of individuals who have dealt with deeper dread at the thought of losing their coverage than I can even imagine.

It has become increasingly clear to me that I live in an unfair world. For part of this year, I had the benefit of gaining a global perspective on a long-term stay in London. The United Kingdom is a flawed country just like ours, but it is also a country that guarantees access to health care as a human right to all of its citizens in the form of the National Health Service (NHS). Yet somehow people who share my American citizenship do not deserve that same right. The reality is as simple as that.

To observe how Britons so fiercely fight to protect their access to single payer universal health care (labeled in our country as "socialized medicine"), was to see that this is an issue that crosses partisan lines. It is not red versus blue, Labour versus Tory (the colors are the reverse of the American parties'). We hear stories from American politicians defending our privatized health care stating that people complain constantly of long waiting periods for care in the UK, yet ask a British person if they'd prefer the American system and you'll get a speedy and blunt answer: "No."

Even if we disagree on how health insurance costs are handled, I think we can agree that the right to good health should be available to everyone, point-blank.

In the coming months, I will keep listening to this discussion on the national level. I will stay informed, as should we all, and voice my thoughts when I feel they need to be shared.

This is just one among many concerns that has become a constant source of unease in my day-to-day life. To cast it aside as another strictly political issue is to ignore the basic humanity that we all share, and I refuse to see it in anything less than black and white. We all deserve health care. There is no but.

Rank you for rating me

Sean MacEntee / Flickr

In the early 2000s, I caught a glimpse of the future. Not in the way you are thinking - this was no foreshadowing of the invention of shrink rays, teleportation, or flying cars. It was something altogether more all-consuming and sinister.

Browsing the internet and delving deep into its most pitiful depths, my mom discovered a website where you could rate user-submitted images on their subject's level of attractiveness. I, the ever-present lurker of the household, found myself peeking over her shoulder as she compulsively clicked through photos in a sort of prehistoric Tinder-esque manner. Crowding her screen were men in worn white tank tops and women making seductive eyes at the camera in photos that played ancestor to the modern day selfie. It was hard not to mindlessly judge-and-click, judge-and-click.

I could not have been older than 10 when I learned about this website, but I soon became captivated by it. Though I was still falling for the cutest boy actors on the Disney Channel, I browsed through this site with its unusual crop of 20 or 30-somethings. It was hard not to be titillated by the voyeuristic enjoyment of rating people who were somewhere between hopelessly narcissistic and completely self-loathing.

In hindsight, the idea of clicking a number between one and 10 on someone's looks is a vulgar and destructive preoccupation. Yet to this day we are taking part in a game not unlike the one those hopeful "hot" people played almost two decades ago. And we barely seem to notice it.

There has not been any lack of literature and pop culture attention paid to this subject. The damaging effect of reputations built on social media and cyberbullying has been fodder for everything from local newscasts to teen horror films as of late.

Still we turn a blind eye to how pervasive ratings and rankings are in every facet of our lives in the 21st century.

I walk down the street and see a beautiful sunset. I take a photo. Am I satisfied to enjoy it in that old classic way - be it a photo album or a slideshow - perhaps shared once or twice with close friends? No, that would be absurd. I must post it to Instagram, because nothing is experienced well when experienced alone.

I try out a new restaurant and the food tastes like it was dragged out of a trash bin. Do I mention it to the wait staff? Why go through the awkwardness when I can just write them a scathing review on Yelp. Maybe I will earn some virtual badge of honor for my valiant effort to eat out on a Saturday night.

While these aren't characteristics I covet, I struggle with them constantly. Living in the moment just does not provide that immediate and insatiable burst of excitement that getting the first like on a Facebook post might. There is no lack of scholarly analysis about the neurological effects that social media can have on us. But at what cost do we take these hits of dopamine?

A favorite passage of mine comes from Dave Eggers' novel The Circle in which the protagonist must contend with her results in a popularity vote. Her coworkers are asked to vote on whether or not they like her, and when a small percentage respond negatively she goes into a tailspin.

"...she knew she should feel good about 97 percent of the campus finding her awesome. But as she left the hall, and made her way across campus, she could only think of the 3 percent who did not find her awesome."

The longer the time to ruminate, the more destructive her thoughts become:

"She was being stabbed. She had been stabbed. Who were these people? What had she done to them? They didn’t know her. Or did they?"

Until eventually her anxiety turns to paranoia.

"She was hurt by them, by the 368 votes to kill her. Every one of them preferred her dead...To frown at her, to stick their fingers at that button, to shoot her that way, it was a kind of murder."

The sincerity of the narration - its unfettered belief in the cuckoo bananas notion that vocal dislike is akin to murder was all too ridiculous. At the same time, it rang true.

While the way we digitally interact with others is easy to dismiss, just because something is not tangible does not mean it is not real. Little slights on social media can feel as if they have happened in person due to their effect on the brain. Ambivalence or, even worse, apathy to one's online presence can send an all-too-obsessed mind into a downward spiral.

In another dystopian narrative, the "Nosedive" episode of Black Mirror, ratings become the basis for a stratification of a society. People who are able to capture the highest ratings are allotted exclusive perks and privileges while those who reject that system become society's outcasts.

Perhaps because fiction depicts these ideas with such outrageous results, it can be hard to take them seriously. But in little myriad ways, the harm done by quantifying our worth via positive reinforcement is making us less people and more machines. We can control our portrayal so systematically that we know exactly what we can and cannot express. Perhaps we hold back what we would like to share. And if we don't hold back, we do it with the understanding that we may end up ostracized for what seems like a trivial reason.

To put oneself in the line of fire for feedback used to seem crazy. It was too on the nose, too obvious, too scary. Asking someone if you're pretty has too destructive a spectrum of answers. We are skeptical of those who search for this kind of affirmation and worried for those who lack the confidence to feel good in their own skin.

On some level, though, we are all still asking to be told where we stand between one and 10.

Visions despite a tarnished future

In 24 hours, the whole world has experienced an extraordinary series of emotions. First, there was promise, then anxiety and nail-biting, soon resolution. For some, that led to an even more pronounced set of feelings - fear, worry, depression. But somewhere in there, I feel I may have found a degree of hope.

This morning I woke to news that requires no restating. I no doubt believe it is an historic occasion, though its portrayal in the history books of tomorrow remains to be seen.

I processed the stages of grief - through denial to anger to bargaining to depression, but acceptance seemed an improbability if not an absolute impossibility. Instead, I opted for distraction.

Hours and hours and a hot chocolate later, I've had a peace wash over me with an origin that is two-fold and (I believe) key to moving forward in the face of this incredibly inauspicious moment in history:

1. In the hours following the definitive conclusion of the past many months, I watched as my community of friends and family wrote to each other with visions of solidarity, love, and compassion in the face of fear. Amidst the pain of a tarnished future, they spoke words of love and shared ambitions to become more active for causes in which they believe.

2. I re-read an essay that opened my eyes to the fact that even the most automatic destructive feelings can be combatted with education and compassion.

This is Water, a very beloved commencement address given in 2005 at Kenyon College by the inimitable late David Foster Wallace details the nature of automatic thoughts and how conscious thinking can challenge even the most inherent negative feelings.

His speech (worth taking several minutes to read through) reminded me of a moment I had less than a week ago in a train station. As I stood at a ticket counter putting away my wallet, a man behind me muttered in automatic anger, "hurry up." I was immediately filled with the expected self-consciousness of bothering him, followed by indignation at his rudeness. What I did not expect was to feel compassion for him just a few moments later.

I've been in his place. I've stood in a line, in a hurry and wanting things to move just a few ticks faster. I might have even muttered under my breath under those circumstances. And I recognized that he likely acted not out of a conscious desire to be cruel or hurtful, but out of an automatic feeling of self-centeredness that is present in us all.

In moments like what we have witnessed today, it is the easy answer to submit to automatic feelings. Resentment begets vitriol which creates a cycle of negativity. This is the rhetoric that got us to this point in the first place. In the words of Wallace, "...the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self." If we choose that path, we find ourselves as flaming meteors barreling towards the Earth, the very destruction that we claim to despise.

"The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day."

Wallace spoke of this kind of compassionate form of living years ago, yet it is so very apropos to the events we have witnessed today. It is a universal truth. The active decision to breed grace is the antidote to the automatic desire toward animosity.

In such a short time, I have witnessed so much love on the internet and in my social circles. I hope for your sake that you did too. The forthcoming days, months, and years may continue to challenge us. Yet, the hope that we claimed to possess eight years ago has not worn thin. This is but a blip on our timeline, and if we just keep our hearts linked and keep pushing forward toward empathy, then I believe it possible for good to always trump bad.

What I thought versus what I know: Amsterdam, London and Dublin

When I first went to Paris at seven years old, my only knowledge of the city was what I had seen in the movies. I fell in love with the landscapes and architecture watching Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I was taught that apparently traveling to Paris meant finding a French boyfriend from Mary Kate and Ashley’s Passport to Paris.

But seeing the city in all of its real, immersive glory was something altogether unique and totally separate from the repeated VHS viewings I’d witnessed on my adorably tiny 10-inch TV screen.

In the past few weeks I’ve spent time in London, Amsterdam, and Dublin. In the course of these days as a solo traveler, I’ve had quiet moments of contemplation to think about how very different it is to imagine a place and to see that same place for what it is.

London is the city I know best. I can usually walk the streets with minimal use of a map and travel the public transportation without consulting a trip planning app. But no matter the times I come here, there’s always something inspiring and new about the city to discover.

Just two nights ago, I found myself in the middle of a street fair in Bloomsbury. In this area, where I’d studied abroad four years back, I’d somehow neglected this vibrant street which on the night of the festival teemed with art installations, music and dance. I could barely believe this place I thought I’d known could be home to something that had skirted just outside my peripheral vision for so long.

If my familiarity with London is so often being tested, then my travels in other cities are like whirlwind educational experiences.

Amsterdam's gabled roofs (Rachel Poletick/Instagram)

I arrived in Amsterdam on the afternoon of October 3rd, and walking out of the Centraal train station
on the northern edge of the city, I felt overwhelmed. Not merely because my pre-holiday research hadn’t involved learning how to get a ticket for the subway and trolley system in the city, but because of the scope of what stood before me. Beautiful canals meet architecture that appears somehow equally inviting and intimidating in its ornate beauty.

Over the course of a few days traversing the city, I walked a number of residential canals, met a fellow traveler at a restaurant serving traditional Dutch cuisine, avoided direct eye contact in the Red Light District, walked back and forth and back and forth past the beautiful Rijksmuseum, cried through the Anne Frank House, and thought of my friends, my family, and the path that led me to where I was. Amsterdam, for me, felt nothing like it is in the public mindset. The deviant culture I’d been told about gave way to one of the most open and friendly societies I’ve ever encountered. The three crosses (XXX) of Amsterdam’s coat of arms that graced so many surfaces around the city felt like a postscript to every moment. Its historical significance (and modern reinterpretation) aside, the symbol felt like a set of kisses tacked onto every moment, an offering of belonging and love.

My trip to Dublin came less than two weeks later, on October 17th.

The Proclamation of the Irish Republic (Rachel Poletick/Instagram)

My goal in arriving in Dublin was two-fold: 1. Awaken myself with the Irish perspective about their fight for independence from Britain and 2. Wind down with some traditional music. I accomplished my goals, but in the process learned so much more than I could have anticipated. Prior to arriving, I thought of Ireland as a smaller, greener version of the UK. I knew little about the history of the nation save for what I’d been taught in one class session during a course on British history.

Just traveling to Dublin was like a masterclass. The city is forever altered by the struggles and resiliency of its people. On my first day I went to Trinity College and saw a full print of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, not realizing that this symbol would pop up several times over my few days in the city. My passing knowledge of the 1916 Easter Rising became an expanding history of the struggles of the Irish people. I visited Kilmainham Gaol, a prison which at different times held debtors and political prisoners in great numbers. I felt the pain of separated families due to injustice. In other moments, I listened to music and discovered a side of Irish pride that is centered in an undying passion for cultural traditions. Dance, music and art became a focal point of my travels, as did the brief but incomparably lovely interactions I had with Irish people. Of the dozen or so store proprietors I spoke to, I came away with more jokes, pleasantries, recommendations, and stories than I have experienced in any other city I have ever visited. It’s hard not to feel like you belong in Dublin when you spend even a short amount of time there.

I walked away from these moments in places - both the familiar and new - and considered how little it is that I know despite how much I seem to think I know. Being in a place is nothing like reading about a place. Meeting people is nothing like hearing from people. Thinking is nothing like knowing.

On that first trip to Paris, I remember walking through Notre Dame after perhaps 50 viewings of the Disney film accumulated over four years. I was struck with something - the checkerboard floors - no doubt drawn directly from reality by the animators of the film. They had a special meaning to me because they were as real in my filmic knowledge of Paris as in reality. In subsequent visits to the church, I’ve looked at those floors and seen the familiar. I’ve known the reality of the floors of Notre Dame, just as I’ve seen it on the screen in my living room at four years old. To say that the translation of the dream to its tangible counterpart moved me to tears is an understatement. On my last visit to Notre Dame, I stared down and cried as my past, my present, and my future collided in this one small observable thing: the floor of this cathedral.

Once in a day

My five year diary is both aesthetically pleasing and a super low stakes commitment! (Rachel Poletick / Instagram)

Four years ago when I started The Songs of Spring, I unwittingly found myself caught in the midst of a year-long experiment in endurance. After writing steadily every day, I challenged myself to keep my streak going. Even after 365 days had passed, I had grown so used to the process of coming up with a topic worth writing about every day and then immediately putting pen to paper -- or fingers to keyboard -- that I could not let go. I kept writing daily blogs for a while after my year had elapsed.

Now, like hobbies often do, this blog fell by the wayside to make time for other responsibilities. Where I've lost one commitment, I have gained several others. Yet I have learned since 2012 that having something to hold you accountable on a daily basis can be rewarding, even cathartic.

We often talk about sameness as boring. We use buzzwords like "adventure" and "change" to indicate our hopes and plans for the future. Settling into a routine can be a struggle because it can feel like it lacks stimulation.

The more aspects there are to our routine, the harder this predictability is to bear. Time is our greatest asset and our biggest enemy. We crave more of it. We procrastinate when we feel the time we have is inadequate. We get discouraged. The cycle repeats.

Since 2014, I have been writing in a separate -- private -- journal every day. Short entries, only a few sentences each. Certainly not the same level of engagement and talent required for a blog since I am writing for my eyes only, rather than attempting to explain a theory or a feeling with any complexity.

But writing to foster talent is not what I'm getting at here. What I have discovered since starting this new once-a-day project is that doing something every single day is really awesome. Knowing that you will be carving out even five minutes from your day to do something meaningful not only reinforces values like patience and diligence, it also makes you feel confident on days when you may have been less than productive.

We all would benefit by taking a little time out of our days to reflect. That can mean any number of things, from writing in a journal to sending a note to someone you love to quietly meditating. Our lives, even when they are monotonous, are far too hectic. How often do we stop to just think?

So do that right now. I hope it will be as wonderful for you as it is for me.

Always have existed, always will exist

It is 2016. I am 23 years old. I have dark hair, brown eyes, olive toned skin. I know these things, but I also know they won't last forever. Nothing lasts forever.

Every stage of life has felt, at least in some respect, like a continuation. I have never stopped feeling like a kid, never stopped feeling like a teen, never stopped feeling like an undergrad, never stopped feeling like an intern. Though all those stages in my life have elapsed, in my mind they are all still vibrantly, almost tangibly real.

Though it's been a few years since I picked up the book, there is one thing in particular I remember quite vividly from reading Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five: This notion of time existing not as a straight linear progression, but on a sort of continuum. It's somewhat akin to Doctor Who lore. Instead of living in a location bound by space and time, it's the suggestion that we can live outside of our temporal reality and extend our consciousness to past and present.

"The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever." (Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five)

While the book reads as science fiction, there is an inherent truth to its message. While we may live in a moment, we are also not entirely separate from our past and our future - particularly the former. At any moment we choose, we can place ourselves in the past through our memories, the future through our plans, and those experiences can feel almost as real as the present. In the case of dreams, they can feel more real than reality.

I may look back at my childhood and think of it as a time long gone and expired, a period in my life to which I may never return. But in a moment of reminiscence, the thoughts and feelings and sensory responses I had can come back and feel wonderfully, occasionally spookily "in the now."

Perhaps this is why it is so difficult to let go of the previous versions of oneself. Having experienced the various stages of my life, I live in the memories of them and never feel like they are fully over. Each moment leads into another, making up the whole - a whole which is, by its nature, incomplete because it consists of a future as well.

This is all exceedingly metaphysical and perhaps incomprehensible brain melting philosophizing. Yet it's something I feel plays a hugely important role in life.

Do we live based in our present - a moment to moment progression of events? When each is done, we move onto the next? Or do we reside in a more nebulous space of distinct and relevant past, present and future - perhaps divided into even more meaningful categories of recent past, distant past, soon and faraway future?

To me it seems most definitely the latter, and that's what makes the science fiction of Vonnegut's world so impactful and human. The confusion over identity - in my case whether I'm still a kid, a teen, or a college student even after passing those stages in life - is not a question of truth or fiction, but a confirmation of the existence of this continual process and the fact that in some ways some things do last forever.

It will always have been 2016. I will always have been 23. I will always have had dark hair, brown eyes, olive toned skin. I will always know these things, so that knowledge will last forever (even though I cannot).

There's a bittersweetness to all of this. And I think it's why time is at the center of so much of our culture and our art. Our lives revolve around time. But maybe if we stopped thinking about time as such a static state, it would stop being our enemy and start being our companion and friend. In our finite days we are given infinite opportunities. There's beauty in that, there's beauty in time.

How not to fix a problem

Lately I've become a bit of a podcast nerd. Spending hours in the car driving to and from work, I find few things as entertaining and miraculously distracting as episodes of The Nerdist Podcast, Gilmore Guys, Lore, and many many other terrific programs.

Today, during my commute travails, I spent half an hour listening to the newest episode of Dear Hank and John, a somewhat inaccurately labeled "comedy podcast" from YouTube's very own VlogBrothers.

In the natural flow of their conversation and in answering a listener's question, John mentioned something that struck a chord with me which -- upon reflection -- I believe to be one of the most important aspects to maintaining healthy and loving relationships. So I thought I'd share it here on The Songs of Spring.

The question read:

"Dear Hank and John,  

There must be a better way to express empathy than saying 'I'm sorry.' Saying 'I'm sorry' places blame on the person expressing empathy and normally causes the person receiving empathy to reply with something along the lines of ‘It's not your fault’ or even worse misplacing negative feelings towards someone who is genuinely trying to voice compassion to their situation. I've taken to saying 'Yo bro, I know that feel,' but in some situations it seems improper. What do you guys think? Is there better vocabulary that can be used to express empathy?"

To which John began explaining the concept of "empathic listening," which he learned about while working as a student chaplain at a children's hospital.

"So an example of empathic listening might be that someone tells you that they’re feeling very sad and you say 'I'm hearing that you're feeling very sad right now'...Obviously, in a perfect world you want to phrase it a little more subtly than that so that it doesn't feel awkward in conversation. But it is, at least in my experience, astonishingly effective. Just to acknowledge what someone else is feeling and to acknowledge that you hear what they’re feeling is really powerful."

This brought the brothers into a discussion on the inherent problem of offering solutions to problems when a solution is not requested.

Hank: "And don't do the thing that I do which is, 'Well here's how you can fix your problem.'"

John: "No, do not go to problem-fixing. Because A) it does not work B) when it is time for problem-fixing, people will start to bring up solutions instead of bringing up problems. And also, in most cases of pain there is no easy solution. The job is not to find a solution, the job is to find less aloneness within it."

This is an issue I've observed hundreds of times in my own life and in the lives of those around me. I've been on both sides of the situation, and I feel I can see the reality with some clarity.

Often in our relationships we offer our shoulders to cry on, but only for so long. We patiently listen, but after a while we resort to trying to fix the perceived problem. It always seems like the right thing to do at the time. We're satisfying the most beautiful human desire: to help.

But the most beneficial choice we can make as confidantes is to offer ourselves with no strings attached, to listen compassionately and without agenda. The very act of offering a solution can seem in itself dismissive. We risk alienating those we love the most by not hearing them out, but instead talking over them with what we believe is wisdom.

This all comes down to the root of all positive relationships, which is understanding and respect. When we love someone, whether it be as a friend, a romantic partner, a family member, or what have you -- we owe it to them to treat them with patience and consider their needs before acting. Often, just having someone to listen to a problem is enough to make the problem go away — or at least make it easier to contend with.

It's such an easy choice we can make, to listen. It's really the simplest solution of all.

If you're interested in listening to the entire podcast episode I'm referencing, find it below. The question quoted above is read at 20:15.

Evolution of a friendship

Take a moment to think about your best friend(s). Is there something you absolutely love about them? Do they bring out the best in you? Can you trust them with your innermost thoughts? Do you believe your friendship will stand the test of time?

A dandelion in Regent's Park. (Rachel Poletick)

These are not typical questions we ask ourselves about our friendships. As we float like seeds in the perpetual wind of life, we gather up relationships and are lucky if a few of them gives us "yes" answers to the aforementioned questions. If we do, those friendships will hopefully grow and bloom. If not, they may wilt.

But what are we supposed to do if we refuse to accept even the foregone conclusion?

That perhaps not all friendships are meant to last.

There was once a time when I could say I'd never lost a friend. I was young then, and unfortunately that time did not last very long.

Over the years, I've met a very many people and called a small number of them "best friends." Of those best friends, I've been somehow able to hold onto quite a few. On this day and counting, my closest friendships have lasted for around a decade. That's almost half of my life, and by my estimation quite an accomplishment.

In those 10 years I've observed the many twists and turns of a healthy friendship: the stages which they often enter and exit, regardless of how we may try to manipulate them.

As they begin, there is hesitation. We tell each other parts of ourselves, but not the whole. We don't even know where we'd begin with the whole. But as more and more pieces are shared, we feel closer and safer with our new confidantes.

Soon, we're able to talk with relative freedom. We have experienced enough reactions to know where to start and (hopefully) where to stop. We begin to trust our friends, and we don't fear their judgment like we may have before.

If we live close together, we see each other regularly and perhaps frequently. There is a closeness that is afforded by proximity, but also by companionship.

This has all been the upswing. Then there's the inevitable parting.

I've never stayed in the same place as any single friend of mine, and I doubt many of us have. Whether it's the break as we head off to college, the return home after our senior years, or the transition to adult life in some other distant place, the chances are we will separate at some point.

The cooling off period from a very close friendship is the moment when those earlier questions present themselves, whether or not we choose to answer them.

Some decide to put their distant friendships on temporary hold, channeling energy into their local friendships, but making themselves available to those old friends whenever they should call.

Others feel a growing detachment and allow themselves to separate from faraway friendships, pushing them to wilt peacefully and untouched.

Still some try very hard to keep their friendships alive no matter the distance. But as we know from the many horror stories told of long distance relationships gone sour, the more we push the harder it may be to maintain the closeness we desire.

Now if I knew what path was best, I would have said something by now. Unfortunately, I don't. What I do know is that after answering those questions, I'm usually better equipped to allow the wind to lead me where it may, even if that means letting go for a while.

If we are friends, or if we have been, thank you for being a part of my journey and letting me be a part of yours. One day, I hope we are together and that these questions occur to both of us. And that we know without a doubt that the universal answer is "yes."

A Happy Esther Day to all of my loved ones.

VidCon 2015: Nerdfighter Recap

A Creator panel at VidCon 2015. (Rachel Poletick / Instagram)

Take a three-story building and fill it with thousands of people for a weekend, and you can expect to see one of two sides of humanity:

1. An apocalyptic survival test in which only the most destructive, insane and sweaty competitors survive.

or

2. A circle of friends holding hands around a campfire and singing "Kumbaya."

At VidCon 2015, the figurative voices of thousands of nerdfighters resonated at once. Together, they united a community that has fought to decrease worldsuck, but in more recent years has struggled to decrease its own internal divisiveness.

VidCon is an annual conference asking and answering questions about the state of online video, but as of 2014 there were bigger questions surrounding the Con's very existence. With thousands of young YouTube enthusiasts gathering to storm the Anaheim Convention Center in search of their favorite creators, older viewers stepped back to observe and lament at the loss of their sanctuary. The very first VidCon had only around 1,400 attendees and was a place for the creator and the viewer to come together as friends. With over 18,000 in attendance in 2014, the event grew over-crowded and cut-throat. Coexistence seemed impossible.

[Read more about VidCon 2014: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly]

From its inception in 2010 through to 2014, VidCon had two tracks: Community and Industry. The Community track focused on personality-based content for viewers while Industry gave access to more technical content for creators. As the years passed, the designations continued with few hitches. But by VidCon 2013, the tides were changing. The division between Community and Industry grew as entertainment industry professionals set their sights on YouTube as a viable media platform and snapped up the Industry passes while the Community track was flooded with viewers and creators.

This year, the creation of a third track at VidCon—the Creator pass—separated the community into its very separate constituents. This allowed a burgeoning group of content creators to have their own track focused on the art of crafting online video, while the viewers (as before) still got the fix they needed from the Community track and professionals stayed with the Industry track. The addition proved to be a step in the right direction.

VidCon in its new form is an organized and safe environment which caters directly to the attendees' needs. Depending on your desire—whether that is to meet your favorite YouTuber, learn how to make videos yourself, or begin using online video in your corporate strategy—there is a track for you.

On the Creator track, I was able to relive the fond memories of VidCons past. I took part in a breakout group to discuss gender and representation on YouTube, I sat in a story circle of my peers, I heard very niche and personal Q&A and panel sessions that I couldn't have even dreamed of getting into last year on the Community track. Rather than fight just to get into a panel (as I did last year), I could arrive 15 minutes prior and get a seat in the first five rows. There were places to lounge and opportunities to meet new people, to really feel that sense of community again.

My big "Kumbaya" moment, however, happened on the last day of the conference, away from the Creator track. As the VidCon concert ended and the setup began for VidCon Prom, a video played on the screen above the arena stage. It was a compilation video of the weirdest animal noises I'd ever heard, and perhaps the winner of the Best Non Sequitur of the Year award.

Surrounded by my fellow VidCon attendees, I laughed. I convulsed. I cried. And I felt like I was at summer camp, sitting amongst friends and telling funny stories. This was the community I joined, and this is the community to which I always want to belong. We are nerdfighteria, we decrease worldsuck through love and videos and VidCon is our home.

Who are we if not the people we have always been?

Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day. (ceedub13 / Flickr)

Something occurred to me a few weeks ago. Driving around and feeling a simultaneous rush of adrenaline and rising indignation, I decided to turn my iPod to Green Day.

Firstly, yes I still have an iPod. Secondly, yes I still listen to Green Day. These are possibly very strange things for you, the reader, to read as they both seem vaguely anachronistic. But let's not get carried away with the petty details.

What I discovered was a piece of myself that, though squished into the recesses of my brain for years, was still vibrant as ever: my preteen spirit.

I like to think of those preteen years as the "black eyeliner stage." Between the ages of 12 and 14, as I began the search to find myself, I felt - as many young adults do - disenfranchised and misunderstood. As a show of rebellion and an attempt to hide myself from my peers, I wore dark everything - black clothing which blended in with my black hair and dark eyes, black eyeliner and black nail polish.

Frustrated by society's desire to pin me into given categories - ethnically, religiously, politically, socioeconomically - I wanted out. I felt alien and abnormal, as if I didn't belong to just one minority group within my community, but many. I soon became paranoid and distrustful, believing everyone was judging me harshly for being whatever it was that made me "different."

In desiring a place to fit in, I pinned myself into new categories. Isolation made me search for kindred spirits, but where I found true compassion was in the arts.

Without even being old enough to understand the meaning of the term "Green Day," I fell into a deeply dependent relationship with the band and their music. Drug references and tales of illegal activities went over my head, while the music gave me an outlet for the new emotions I was combatting.

Those preteen years were some of my loneliest - they saw me lose the most friends and encounter the most bullies. They also simultaneously motivated me to work harder than I ever had in my life. I was a machine - clocking in at 7 am and out between 5 and 6 pm. My days were tireless, and my music had to be as well.

The energy of Dookie, Insomniac and American Idiot were the antidote to my already hyper-intense reality. They were the substitute for screaming into a pillow and punching my hand through a wall. And I didn't realize it then, but they got me through the bleak moments and made me smarter and stronger.

Yet as the black eyeliner became more subdued and the black nail polish was replaced with blues and purples and pinks, the angst-ridden songs I listened to on a loop became my past. I replaced them with beautiful friendships and elevated goals, pretty songs and hopeful thinking.

But to those who defend this by saying one changes throughout life, you're missing one important and essential element.  We are the result of our past, present and future - in no particular order. Our timeline isn't strictly linear. Every time we start a new job or a new school year, we are the meek children walking into our first days of kindergarten, doe-eyed and frightened as hell. As we exit university, we fall back into old routines: living at home and hanging out with high school friends. Just because time has passed doesn't mean everything must change. Just because something has changed doesn't mean it is forever altered.

NBC / BuzzFeed

In so many ways, I bear no resemblance to my middle school persona. I am an adult who makes money and knows how to drive a car. I pay taxes, for goodness' sake. But in other - more personal - ways I'm still the exact same person using her hair as a curtain to hide her face and possessing a demeanor not unlike April Ludgate in Parks and Recreation.

Life is full of valleys and plateaus, and Green Day just happened to come to me twice during deep and defining valleys. To me, their music proves that what is lost once isn't necessarily lost forever. And when something touches your heart, there's a distinct possibility it will do so again.

We are all the sum of our parts, and I plan to never underestimate a single part of myself again. If I do, there's a good chance it'll come right back to surprise me.

A day for old news

Jackie / Flickr

Happy Valentine's Day.

If you're looking for a little humor and fun, read my "The ghosts of Valentine's past" post from 2012.

If you'd rather experience the revelation I had on this Valentine's Day (2015), stay tuned. You're in for a treat.

I have spent the last few years of my life making terrible choice after terrible choice, and it took a long time and a great deal of sadness to realize it. I dated the wrong people, I got caught up in relationships that meant little to me, I had trouble letting go. My heart dictated my actions, rather than my head. And as we know, the heart doesn't always have the firmest grasp of reality.

Today, I had the uniquely painful pleasure of encountering a photo that served as a blast from the past, despite being decidedly present. It was like a simultaneous blow to the gut and a punch in the old cranium. You may have guessed it, I saw a picture of my ex with his new girlfriend.

This ex is old news. He broke up with me months ago and it was hard for about a minute. The mourning period was short, but the self-esteem loss was penetrating. As anyone who has been broken up with knows all too well, the feeling of rejection is more powerful than logic. For some reason, when you lose someone, your heart decides to care about that person more than you ever thought possible. Suddenly you think "maybe I did love him?", even though when you were together, he made you feel like poking your eyeballs out with an ice pick.

Too many times in my few years of being a dating-girl, I've found myself falling for the wrong people, losing them, and never feeling the relief that I know I should. The loss of a significant other should be grieved, but then it should transition into positivity, freedom, even excitement.

Instead of embracing the promise of new opportunities, I've looked to the past as a shelter. I hid myself in memories and burrowed so deep into my cave of past relationships that I stopped seeing my follow-up relationships for what they were, good or bad.

When I found myself dating someone new, the relationship became clouded by previous experiences. Nothing measured up, nothing was satisfactory. My heart was always looking backwards.

Some of my longest relationships have been with people I didn't actually care very much about. While I hoped to eventually feel a burning passion for them, it simply wasn't there from the start. Jaded by previous breakups, I saw new relationships as numbing agents.

While a relationship should be a stimulant, they were suppressants.

This Valentine's Day is the first in a while that I've been fully single. Last year, I was seeing someone (sort of). The year before, I'd been broken up with a week and a half before the holiday and was deep into my mourning period. In 2012, the wounds were still fresh from another breakup. This year, I finally realize that being alone is better than being with someone who may not be the right person anyway.

The number one rule in dating should be to save your love and enthusiasm for the right people. I want to build up my love until it bursts from my heart and allows me to fully engulf the person on the receiving end of it. Why bother with someone who can only make me feel so-so, when I know I have the capacity to feel so much more?

To my mind, Valentine's Day is really about being with the people who accept you and believe in you unconditionally. The exes of my past did not offer me that, so who cares? They're old news.

Yet by being careful and pursuing quality, I'm promising myself to have only good news to tell next Valentine's Day, and every Valentine's Day after that.