I AM AUBREY
last.fm, youtube, flickr, facebook, random post, ask
(my writing)
(my doodles)
(me) (my dog)
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hey everyone look at this thing i made last night
these are a bunch of candid fragmented clips from my life i found and edited all together. the song in the background is black hawk waltz by chris garneau. the words are something i wrote in april after looking through a lot of craigslist missed connections.
they’re mostly strangers.
i think this is the saddest thing i’ve ever made
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and sometimes i write weird novel-length entries because i’m in a creepy good mood
i need an outlet; i have always needed an outlet. i need a way to feel at peace with my emotions and thoughts. sometimes it’s this forum i go to, and sometimes it’s tumblr, and sometimes it’s my private blog, and sometimes it’s a physical notebook i can hold in my hands and write in with permanent ink, and sometimes it’s texting somebody seven pages of words, and sometimes it’s talking to my wall (my wall is alive by the way - his name is dan; he’s actually a human. i just realized i probably sound crazy, always mentioning how i talk to a wall, not that i’m not crazy or anything…), and sometimes it’s you (but not as much as it used to be), and sometimes it’s my family, and sometimes it’s everyone else in my life who i talk to on an emotional level, and sometimes it’s found in lighthearted discussions with all of my other friends, and sometimes it’s found in reading old things i’ve written and being refreshingly surprised at how much i’ve changed for the better or how much i have stayed the same in the good areas, and sometimes it’s thinking quietly but still out loud outside to myself on a summer night while hiding in the summer shadows, and sometimes it’s highlighting the sentences that feel familiar inside of a book i love, and sometimes it’s getting lost in a movie that feels eerily similar to my own life, and sometimes it’s relating to sad lyrics in a song and knowing you’re not the only one suffering and that you will never be the only one suffering, and sometimes it’s crying to an instrumental song just because it’s beautiful because of the fact that it’s somehow magically making it seem as if every object surrounding me has a pulse and that’s a feeling that is tough to explain in words but amazing to feel, and sometimes it’s found in a thunderstorm that causes a power-outage for days and forces people to use candles and sit outside and notice things they don’t normally notice, and sometimes it’s figuring out the hidden meanings behind my dreams and keeping a dream journal and reading dreams from two years ago that i don’t even remember having, and sometimes it’s found when floating around aimlessly really far out into the ocean, farther than anyone else in your sight, so far that you feel like you are the farthest person from the earth’s land and in that moment that feels like the perfect distance but you do not feel alone, and sometimes it’s the feeling a goddamn anxiety pill or two or three gives me, and sometimes it’s sitting on the trampoline while talking to emily about everything and nothing but mostly nothing which turns into everything and that makes no sense and that makes all of the sense, and sometimes it’s meanly laughing at people instead of laughing with them, and sometimes it’s a car ride with the windows down and the volume all the way up and my hand out the window surfing along the air, and sometimes it’s laughing with a group of people you absolutely adore and in that moment forgetting the fact that anything in life beyond humor even exists, and sometimes it’s a phone call, and sometimes it’s crying, and sometimes it’s crying during a phone call, and sometimes it’s sitting next to somebody who wants to lean on you and hold your hand but isn’t leaning on you or holding your hand because they’re too shy to do that so instead you two start talking a little bit and you end up looking through their ipod to bring up conversation topics and you start naming different song titles out loud and they start talking about the songs and then you’re listening to the person tell you that they think of some songs as a place rather than a song and that whenever they listen to those particular songs they sigh and in their mind they say to themselves, “ahhh, i’m HERE again,” and then you put that song on for them and it starts playing out loud for both of you to hear and then they sigh and they’re there again all while simultaneously sitting right next to you and you smile to yourself because you like knowing that people think in such interesting ways like that and you think this is even better than leaning on each other or holding hands, and sometimes it’s waving to a stranger while in the car and having them wave back and smile at you, and sometimes it’s seeing a person cry for the first time or crying around somebody for the first time, and sometimes it’s remembering a part of my past because of a scent or a sound, and sometimes it’s editing my pictures and videos in the middle of the night while being very at-ease and as content as i can be in that moment and probably drinking water and chewing minty gum knowing me and listening to nothing but myself breathe or maybe some ambient music, and sometimes it’s fighting with a friend and thinking you will never talk to them again because the fight was so powerful and sad and then missing them like hell for six long months and then finally saying something to them again and finding out they missed you too and then slowly stepping back into your friendship that you missed and needed so much, and sometimes it’s creating fictional characters and discussing their fictional dysfunctional lives or fictional wonderful lives or fictional wonderfully dysfunctional lives with my sister and then having her draw the people because she’s better at drawing than i am and because we need better mental images of these people if we’re going to talk about them and their nonexistent lives and she’ll even go as far as to draw their houses and even their neighborhoods and i watch her get so carried away with it but i think it’s absolutely adorable because i love seeing her create things and maybe one day i’ll write a book about these people with her, and sometimes it’s kissing my dog and getting his hair stuck between my lips and saying “ew” out loud in a disgusted voice and then kissing him again so i don’t hurt his feelings and then calling him fat because he is and not apologizing because he can take that, and sometimes it’s the strange smiley feeling that comes after somebody i just kissed goes home and i am alone at last, and sometimes it’s taking a break from talking to everyone, and sometimes it’s singing along with a gigantic crowd of people during a concert to a song you know by heart and love by heart as well and in those moments sometimes you can forget who you are and you can become nothing more than a lovely song which is a nice thing to be for about five minutes, and sometimes it’s hearing from somebody you haven’t talked to in a long time - somebody you thought almost forgot about you, and sometimes it’s knowing you made somebody’s day, and sometimes it’s typing every little thing that comes to mind until you’re completely off track from what you were originally talking about and not caring because you’re enjoying typing regardless, and sometimes it’s walking in my woods on the hill that overlooks the field with my younger sister and her best friend sarah while listening to them talk about tiny things and allowing myself to forget my age for a moment (until they remind me by saying that i don’t act like the rest of the “older kids” they know, and they say it like it’s a good thing), and sometimes it’s the weird thrill i get in knowing that i don’t act like the rest of the older kids they know even though i know it’s because i’m strange and too childlike for a 20-year-old (but who defines what a 20-year-old should find joy in? and i would never wish away my strangeness so in the end it is okay), and sometimes it’s coming home from a trip and sleeping in my own bed again and saying hi to my yard because i’ve missed its quiet nature-filled privacy so much, and sometimes it’s leaving for a trip and giving my house the middle finger on the way out of my driveway because i’m sick of it and need a drastic change from my boring and mind-draining everyday life, and sometimes it’s writing a long letter to somebody and taking months to get around to mailing it, and sometimes it’s the moment you realize you know somebody a lot better than you knew them a year ago and you smile because you are happy they are in your life more now, and sometimes it’s cleaning my room and finding things i haven’t touched since i was my sister’s age and then giving them to her for her to keep and then forget about until she’s 20 (who will she give them to when she finds them again?), and sometimes it’s writing a stream of consciousness and feeling free to not use correct punctuation and feeling free knowing that nobody is going to grade my scattered thoughts and then feeling better after everything is out of my head and translated into words other people can read and understand and maybe even relate to if i care to share it, and sometimes it’s knowing that by not making any sense at all you are also making all the sense you could possibly be making in that moment and to be honest you are probably making more sense than you have in weeks and learning a lot and teaching yourself a lot through your so-called-senselessness, and sometimes it’s laughing at how weird and senseless you sound like i just did right now, and sometimes it’s the comfort you have in knowing that you can be completely honest with somebody, and sometimes it’s finding a new person you feel you could tell everything to for some reason because they just have “that” personality, and sometimes it’s watching a dumb ’90s sitcom like three’s company at 3:00 AM because the reoccurring dumb and funny themes in the show make you laugh and are a good way to numb your mind for a little while, and sometimes it’s dreaming something good and then having it come true in your waking life, and sometimes it’s noticing a bunch of coincidences and patterns within your life and loving them all, and sometimes it’s seeing an important time that represents a certain day on the clock and making a silent wish during that minute that wouldn’t make sense if you said it out loud, and sometimes it’s closing your eyes and pointing to a word in a book after asking a question you are curious about but cannot possibly know the answer to by researching and then using the word you picked with your eyes closed as an answer for your question and making sense out of your question that way like it’s your weird religious ritual and that book is your fucking bible (and sometimes it’s asking somebody to pick a word out of a book for you because you have a question in your mind and you need a book-dipping answer and because it’s more intimate to do this with another person rather than doing it alone), and sometimes it’s spilling my soul to a stranger on the internet who understands things on a level better than most people can and this stranger likes to take pictures of houses right before the sun comes up and then he then uploads them onto websites for people like me to look at and leave comments on and so i do but i comment on more than just the pictures and he doesn’t know me but he appreciates it and enjoys reading my flowing thoughts - hell if somebody did that to me specifically because they liked my pictures of blue-tinted houses i would love it too, and sometimes it’s being in a crowd of people you don’t know and not hating them because you’re in a good mood and your usual i-hate-everyone perspective is temporarily missing and you talk to them with ease and in that moment you tell yourself you can’t hate people if you don’t know them and you sort of want to befriend them all and they probably think you are being creepy but you don’t care in the slightest bit because you’re in a good mood and you’ll most likely never actually befriend them or see them again in your life, and sometimes it’s being up all night and walking around outside when it finally gets light out enough to see where you’re walking but people are still sleeping so you are feeling like the only person left on earth and when you inhale and exhale you listen carefully and you pretend you are the loudest thing on earth besides the damn chirping birds, and sometimes it’s when you feel good about yourself because you created something awesome and people loved it and complimented you on it or because you or ate fruit instead of cookies or because you liked how your eyes looked all crinkled and cute in the mirror that day because they reminded you of how they looked two summers ago in the sun in that one picture that was taken of you when you were happier and more content than ever, and sometimes it’s reading something very raw and emotional that somebody you know personally wrote and knowing exactly how they feel or even knowing exactly how a stranger feels by reading their personal writings too, and sometimes it’s walking into a place that is not your home - perhaps a music store or something like that, with instruments all over the walls - and feeling as “at home” as you can possibly feel when you’re not actually at home and the feeling surprises you because it is so noticeable you can’t just ignore it, and sometimes it’s a simple hug, and sometimes it’s a complicated hug, and sometimes it’s just a walk around the neighborhood, and sometimes it’s finally remembering that life isn’t terrible at all after a long time spent thinking it was very terrible, and sometimes it’s the moment you realize everything around you is in some way lovely and you suddenly want to savor the world forever and take things from it and then make them your own and somehow add a personal touch to them to make them even more beautiful and then when you are done doing that you want to share them with others and pass on the beauty and keep the cycle going forever and in this moment every problem is muted and pushed to the background far, far away and problems become small and insignificant compared to the grand scheme of things and even laughable and you are only focused on how nice things feel and all of the problems that were bugging you before are no longer relevant and even though that’s always a very temporary and fairly short-lived moment for me, it’s still a very good temporary and short-lived moment to look forward to and it always comes back eventually even if it hasn’t visited you in a long time but just knowing that it exists and that it will happen again sometime is something to be glad about and keep you going during the bad days, and sometimes it’s playing guitar and singing lyrical thoughts out loud to nobody, and sometimes it’s the clean and calm feeling after a shower, and sometimes it’s falling asleep on the couch because the ceilings are higher in the living room and occasionally it feels nice to sleep there because it is different and less lonely than my own room, and sometimes it is knowing that nothing lasts forever because if you know this you know it applies to bad things as well and that is comforting, and sometimes it is listening to my family make music in the other room and get along with each other, and sometimes it is walking on a hot road for a long time and then onto the hot sand of a long beach while on my way to the ocean on the hottest day of the year with the sun on my shoulders probably giving me sunburn that will hurt by the time night comes - all of this as i’m holding a bunch of things like folding chairs and lunch boxes and being completely exhausted and knowing that my muscles will hurt later on and being sweaty and overheated and thirsty and tired but having the satisfaction of knowing that this is what being alive feels like and that for some reason i have the chance to feel it and that my legs are moving and my heart is apparently beating and that i have somehow managed to breathe every single day of my life up to that moment and that in itself is baffling beyond belief and the ocean is so close to me and i am as free as i could ever possibly be and i could drop everything and just lie down in the sand and reflect on things and smile knowing that it’s currently my favorite season and i could lie down right there in the sand and let the sun burn me for hours on end if i wanted to because that’s what being alive is all about and that’s just one of the many things living gives you the opportunity to do, and sometimes it’s sitting on my deck and talking to the sky or sometimes yelling to the sky or sometimes whispering to the sky and telling it all my little secrets and pretending a god exists and is listening to me somewhere out there, but i don’t think i’ve done that in at least two years, although that is fine with me; the sky is more than enough without a god.
and sometimes it is the sky.
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i thought about how everyone had their own stream of consciousness flowing inside of them, and i imagined how different they all must be from one another, how some must be louder and others more complex. and i started to think of them as actual streams like the one in my backyard. i imagined rivers too. calm little streams and harsh, frightening rivers. if my thoughts were actually water, i think they’d be a huge, harsh river.
i remembered this drawing i once saw; it was of a little boy who had just drowned in a pool, lying there lifeless at the very bottom of the deep end. the water, which possessed human qualities in the drawing, was in fetal position, trying to fit itself entirely into the shallow end. it was pointing to the boy and it looked horrified and shocked at the reality unfolding in front of him: a young child had just died while swimming inside of his body. you could tell the water was innocent though. it was just a bystander in the situation like all of the people in bathing suits hovering around the pool with similar, terrified and shocked facial expressions. the main focus was on the water though, because without the water, the little boy would be alive. the water was not a murderer though. that’s the kind of water that would flow through my river of consciousness: in the wrong place at the wrong time, scared of what it can create, powerful but also helpless - that kind of water, those kind of thoughts. i was sure at least a few people had drowned in my river of consciousness throughout the years.
my thoughts drifted to a memory of my father telling me that all streams and rivers eventually made their way to the ocean. i used to ask him so many questions and i’d take the answers so literally. i imagined everyone’s streams and rivers of consciousness making their way to an ocean of consciousness, the largest collection of thoughts possible. at first i imagined it to be the loudest place on earth, with everyone’s thoughts happening all at once in the same place. perhaps it would be more like background noise, though. it would be hard to decipher the difference between everyone’s thoughts. it would be difficult to focus on your own, or anyone’s for that matter. maybe people would go there to forget, to relax, or to just bathe there in the grand scheme of things, where little worries and problems cease to matter. i guess that’s a lot like the actual ocean.
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human skin can be hard to live in. (too long; didn’t read.)
would you like a look into a cloudy mind? feel free to take a step into this recently developed insomnia and these almost obsessive-like thoughts, you stranger, you. this is what my mind might look like if it had to be forced into words. this is a brain scan in text form, searching for god knows what.
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i’m currently sitting here worrying about life and also thinking about how it is very possible that things could get better. my mind is fighting with itself. here we go.
self encouragement or something of the sort: i will somehow get myself back on some kind of track. these unhealthy sleeping patterns will pass. i will get my things done, slowly, one by one. i will eventually be willing to socialize on a regular basis again. i’ll want to go out and have a good time. i will have fun. i will not dread leaving the house as much as i have been lately. the weird anxiety will pass. it usually does. i will fall back into an okay place. i’m not sure how i will get all these things in my life together, but i will. it just takes time.
there are moments when i know everything i am saying right now is true. i can’t ever forget this part of my mind. i have hope somewhere, deep down. no bullshitting here. remember this, aubrey. i won’t let myself stay like this. i just won’t.
i may not ever be perfectly happy with the way things are (which is okay with me), but i will go back to being at least somewhat content with my life. that’s all i need right now. contentment. i will feel comfortable in my own skin again, like i have felt so many times before. this won’t last. don’t let some new pill’s side effects alter the way you see your future turning out. don’t let one bad month that followed a pretty damn good month convince you that there will never be nice feelings like that again. you know that isn’t true. don’t let the good memories of a past year convince you that there will never be fun like that again. nostalgia can be weird like that, but that is silly and unreasonable. your thoughts are twisted right now, aubrey. it is just a phase. i will untwist myself. i will write my way out of this anxiety attack. i’ve done it before and i can do it again. i have control over many things in my own life, even if it doesn’t always feel that way.
THIS. WILL. PASS.
DESPITE MY LATE AWAKENING TODAY (WHICH BY THE WAY WAS VERY NEEDED SINCE I HAVE BEEN STAYING UP FOR WAY TOO MANY HOURS STRAIGHT) I AM NOT GOING TO LET THIS DAY GO TO WASTE.
i will not compare the negative thoughts that keep me up at night to the good, thin layers of other people’s lives i get slight glimpses of ever so often. those two things are not to be compared. those two things are not in the same category. stop being fooled into thinking they are related to each other. they’re not. if i wanted to put on a good show for other people, i could. but that’s exactly what it would be, a show. sometimes it is necessary to take a trip behind the scenes.
i’m pretty sure everyone has a silent voice in their head full of some type of negativity that i have never heard before, and i’m sure i’d be able to relate to at least a few of those voices if they were to speak up. even those smart, creative, talented, successful and active people that i’ve recently grown to be ever so jealous of and intimidated by are sometimes found scared as hell, tossing and turning in their bed, overwhelmed by their own mind, right? i sure do hope so, for my own sake.
sometimes your own encouragement is the best kind out there.* it’s raw. it’s somewhat believable and comforting. you can’t exactly roll your eyes at it and think something sarcastic along the lines of “yeah, right” when reading it written out in right in front of your eyes. but, yeah, it is quite possible that you may read this in the future - whether it be near into it or far into it - and roll your eyes at it, and feel hopeless and apathetic to it all, but it won’t be in the same way that you do when other people are the ones saying these kind of things to you. after all, you were the one who originally thought all of this encouragement up and decided to write it down for yourself to read and somewhat believe. yes there is definitely something in me that wants my life to improve, and that certainly can’t be a bad sign. stick to that thought. you’ll be okay, aubrey.
*although i guess it would be nice to hear some believable encouragement / advice from somebody else every once in a while. (i’m not even sure if encouragement is the right word for this anymore, but that’s beside the point. i hope you know what i mean.) the problem for me is that it is hard to open up to people, and i’m not quite sure if i want to, or what i’d even say. it’s not like there is one big specific thing getting me down day after day. i am made up of millions of tiny, confusing and constantly changing imperfections that i’m not sure i’d be able to express in a way that anyone else would understand.
now don’t get me wrong- my mind is my favorite thing in the whole entire world, but it is also so often the reason behind my downfalls. i’m one of those people who let my thoughts and emotions ruin my life more so than the actual events in my life. for example: if i really LIKE somebody, i am more saddened when my feelings for them fade away (even if they were never mutual in the first place) than i am when i find out that they love somebody else, or when i realize they will never feel the same way towards me that i feel towards them. i can deal well with THAT surprisingly, but losing those positive feeling towards somebody i really care about who brightens my life and keeps my blood pumping with nice daydreams and inspiration is not something i handle well. maybe one of my problems is that i am too content being with just myself. oh so anti-social. yeah, maybe this. and maybe that, too. and possibly this, and certainly that, and blah, blah, blah. there are a lot of things i don’t know. there are a lot of unanswered questions. a lot of things i am completely unaware of. a lot of blank spaces never filled in. a lot of sentence fragments.
hi, my name is aubrey and i am made up of unfinished ideas. my room is full of books i’ve read half way through and then set down for months without touching them, song lyrics i wrote but could never put a tune to, songs i’ve learned how to play only half of and never got a chance to fully record, and to-do lists full of things that are not crossed out. i think in the form of music videos that i have yet to record, and daydreams that will most likely never be real. “i have a lot of nice memories with you, but most of them never happened.” i take photos and give them weird titles i’ve thought of so that the photos seem more like stories, but there are no real finished stories behind those photos with the strange titles. i am full of plans that never happened, situations that make me cry one day and laugh the next, days spent self doubting followed by days spent really liking myself, things i’ve told myself i’d take the time to learn more about but never got around to, spontaneous wonderful feelings i cannot properly express outside of my mind, and many unsaid words to people who have greatly affected my life and/or people i would like to be a part of my life. i am made up of fragments and things i cannot fully grasp onto.
“we’d spend all day in the back yard, comparing our lives to the thorns that grew behind the shed. everything was a god-damned simile.”
“i used to be interested in those types of things.”
HEH.
sometimes i really wonder what the little glimpses into my life that other people get to see are like from their point of view. i am guessing i come across as a kind of open minded, odd, and confused girl that suffers a fair amount, but still has a somewhat strong hold on herself emotionally. which is… kind of right. i’m a big fan of the sentence “keep breathing.” and that over-used quote “if you are going through hell, keep going.” i can do those two things very well and i have never doubted my ability to just KEEP GOING. i have never wanted to “stop” so to say. if you know what i mean. does this make me strong or just slightly less insane? probably the latter.
reading all of this again is crazy. i pretty much contradict every single thing i write (and think) at least once. i needed to do this though. it will quiet my mind for a little while.
i want to cry and i want to smile at the same time. it’s one of those days.
conclusion:
i will go for a walk tonight.
things can be simple like that, too.
