Growing old is scary

Dear Shakespeare,

I'm turning a great big glittering 16 in two weeks; the orange pop  fizzing longing I once felt for my birthday when I was younger seems to have disappeared.  It's like Christmas once I learned that Santa didn't really live in the north pole with a magical factory and was actually my parents tiptoeing 'round the house once I had gone to sleep. Though the logical part of me understands this I desperately cling to the idea of never growing old, I still try to fool myself into believing in Santa and his reindeer, juvenile as it sounds. The idea of growing up frightens me because I feel like once I get older I will lose the ability to dream and imagine  and desperately want rainbow hair. I'll become dull and dry as a piece of plain wholemeal toast.  I worry that as I get older the strength of my feelings will wane, that once I become a proper adult everything will be a muted palette of pastel emotions. For some reason I've always thought this way, as a child I dreaded the thought of becoming a teenager, of getting closer to adulthood. When I watched the film Peter Pan for the first time when I was five I sobbed inconsolably  at the end. Because Peter had never chosen to  save me and take to Neverland and become his best friend and partner in mischief. Instead he'd taken  an unthankful Wendy  and she left him, she left it all to grow up into a "lady" until she could no longer remember Neverland. It makes me really sad, even now, to think that as she got older she forgot. I'm being forced to grow up, in both a physical and emotional sense, I'm no longer a child yet neither an adult. Everyone around me is getting older,  playing dressups as they navigate through adult thoughts and troubles, and I can either stay behind all on my own or go along and see what happens. 

I saw this shirt online a while back, I think it really addresses my current emotional state.  It was designed by Jeremy Scott. If you find yourself bored and floating through the multiple dimensions of the internet which surely exist, check his stuff out

In  entirely unrelated matters I'd like to show you some of my recent attempts at watercolors and other things...

Sorry for the terrible Iphone quality of the pictures, they are inspired by different things which I may expand on at a later date when I'm not wheezing over my keyboard due to an awful cold. Alas,what do You think Shakespeare? Utterly terrible, probably. How are you? I tend to babble about myself in a narcissistic fashion quite a lot. I haven't forgotten about you though

Truly Mary, 

P.s I was thinking of doing a photoset with a friend that describes my feelings about turning 16. I'll show you soon and explain it all. Or maybe I'l send you a list of different photo-set ideas I've had

P.p.s Discovery is the lovechild of Vampire Weekend and Ra Ra Riot and I love it a lot! This is one of their songs

Nonsense thoughts

Dear Shakespeare,

I feel as if I will never have the exact words to describe the way in which I felt, or the depth of my experiences a few Friday's ago. I went to see Tavi Gevinson give a talk.  I don't mean it in a fangirl consumed by obsession sort of way (maybe a little bit). Mostly it was one of the rare moments in my life where I felt entirely within the present moment, for the first time I was able to understand what all the weird spiritual guru's  were trying to say. My mom plays their cd's in the car almost every day, sometimes to achieve a "soothing effect" chirping dolphin noises accompany their dulcet tones. I was always cynical of what they said, how they preached the present moment in a cult-like manner. But I think I understand now, I just wonder whether they do.

I dressed like my sister  when she plays "grownups" with my clothes; a mess of  plastic glitz, donut socks and a large brown coat from thirty years ago. Trailing through the city streets before Tavi's talk I could tell my ridiculous attire made passers-by uncomfortable, I was weird, odd, dressed like a loon. But cliché as it sounds I  didn't give a damn, I felt amazing, like a fucking princess in my pipe cleaner crown. 

Her talk felt so honest, so real and full of brilliance. I still haven't quite finished processing and interpreting what she said. I feel like I could give you a recount of each thing she spoke about, but Shakespeare  I won't.  There are videos of it online, I would somehow manage to dry out and dull her words. She made me feel an overwhelming urge to try though, to try whatever without crippling expectations. I suffer from the fear, sometimes it gets so bad that I don't do anything at all, just give up and sleep or sometimes cry. I feel as if it's unwarranted though. I don’t have a specific reason to be sad, it makes me feel self absorbed and bratty. Do you understand?

She talked about her obsessive journaling, how each time she began a new journal she adopted a new aesthetic, a new handwriting, way of dressing, a new way of living. She said it was to make the nostalgia extra good. It got me thinking, on my fixation with nostalgia and the past, how reality changes in my head so that the past seems so much better than the present could ever offer me. Wouldn't it be interesting to make a sculpture representing the actuality of an event, all smooth and straight lines, and  then contrast it with another sculpture representing the  warped way in which I interpret the event once it has passed, colored by nostalgia and longing.

I hardly know what I am saying any more, I apologize if this all comes out as an obscure, sloppy attempt at a letter. Recently I've noticed that I use the word "attempt" quite frequently. Not because I lack a vocabulary larger than the word, but because whenever I do something I feel an excessive need to apologize. I paint  a watercolour. I say I attempted a watercolour, I attempted a poem. I  provide a plethora of excuses  as to why it looks  or sounds terrible. I'm so scared of actually trying and then failing. I'm scared of recognizing the boundaries of my actual abilities and finding out that they don't extend all that far, that I am helplessly plain, the generic brand at the supermarket. 

Truly Mary,

P.s Sorry for the angsty, feeling-sy letter

P.p.s please listen to this song