Apparently, “transitioning to adulthood” is one of the most stressful things someone can go through in their lifetime. That makes complete sense to me, as I’ve barely been able to sleep this past week due to stress. On top of issues in my personal life, I am about to graduate high school and move 3 hours away from home… and oh boy, is it not as glamorous as I thought it’d be!
What they don’t tell you on Disney Channel is that some nights you’ll be so worked up about things THAT YOU CAN’T EVEN CHANGE that you’ll give yourself a stomach ache.
Last week, my mom received calls from me at least three times a day because I had gotten myself so worked up over nothing. I just needed to talk about it with someone. I am in a much better place for this week, but OH MY GOSH! One thing that being an anxious person has taught me is that it’s sooo important to talk through your feelings. Or if you can’t talk, just write them out. Sometimes hearing your worries out-loud or seeing your fears written right in front of you can help a lot.
What I’ve begun doing recently is writing out everything I am anxious about, but organized into two columns. The right column is labeled “Can Be Controlled”, and the left column is labeled “Out of My Hands”. Those categories are pretty self-explanatory. After writing everything out, I’m able to look at all my worries at once instead of just having them floating around in my head. It helps me realize that what I can’t control isn’t worth me worrying about as much.
All this just to say that I feel like a lot of us MSA seniors are feeling this way right now and I just want it to be clear that we’re not alone. We’re all in the same boat and we all have each other to lean on for support. Just remember to take time for yourself every now and then!
This week as been really hard, for reasons that I can’t really say. So I’m going to list off some things that have made me very happy recently to remind myself that there are still reasons to be happy.
I can only hope that there is age least one person out there who will be as excited about this as I am. Maybe I am just late to the party, but I was convinced that Audible was the only app with professional audiobooks! I always wanted to get a subscribed to it but never had the money.
From The Great Gatsby to The Hunger Games, Spotify does seem to have a wide variety of stories! Classics I’ve always wanted to read, such a Little Women, and favorites I’ve been wanting to reread, like Harry Potter, are now free for me to listen to!!! I’m so excited!
Reading has always been such a big part of my life, but in recent years I’ve kind of fallen out of it. But audiobooks FOR FREE on Spotify… SIGN ME UP!
I mean as I’m listing to this, I’m listening to The Great Gatsby!!
Maybe I’m overreacting and maybe I’ll never actually listen to one of the books, but nevertheless, it makes me happy.
For two hours a day for the past month, I’ve played Animal Crossing: New Horizons. That’s all I have to say about that. At this point, I’m living to decorate my islands and appease my villagers.
I recently got some stickers from the dollar store. It’s just a collection of foods with smiley faces on them and they make me so happy. They’re holographic, so the right lighting, they turn rainbow!!!
I’ve been trying to make new friends recently. I know it’s kind of late in the year to start getting to know the juniors, but it’s better late than never I guess. Even though I’ll be leaving soon, it’s still nice getting to know them.
That’s all for now. Hopefully my week gets better, or else next week’s blog may be another list. Oh well! That’ll be okay. No matter the circumstances, it’s never a bad idea to remember the things that make you happy!
I believe that everyone at one point in their life will try and leave social media. I mean, there are so many pros to doing so. Social media can be a huge detriment to mental health! It can take up a lot of storage on your phone! And if you’re like me and have spent a whopping 6+ hours on your phone DAILY (or more), then you know that social media can be a huge time waster. That was my main issue with it.
I wanted to utilize my time better in the new year and with mindlessly scrolling through social media taking up the majority of it, it seemed like a no brainer!
To start, I posted a message on my Snapchat story on December 31st saying that I would be leaving social media for 2021. I then gathered the phone numbers of close friends who I previously only communicated with through social media, just to be sure we could still keep in touch. And with that, I was ready to leave Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and TikTok by January 1st. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I am waaaaay more dependent on social media than I thought I was.
On January 4th (only four days later!!), I re-downloaded Snapchat and Instagram.
Something I hadn’t taken into consideration was my school work. I was in the middle of filming a documentary project for class and I had to schedule interviews with my subjects. And the main way I was communicating with them was through Instagram and Snapchat, and I didn’t have any of their phone numbers.
I knew I would have to keep Instagram and Snapchat installed until after I was done with the interviews, so I decided I would only use them to communicate with my subjects. No posting on either of them or mindlessly scrolling through feeds or stories… and oh boy did that last a whole two seconds.
While I continued not posting anything myself, I found myself scrolling through Instagram more and more. While TikTok and Twitter stayed uninstalled, I made up for the time I’d wasted on them with scrolling through Instagram’s new “Reels” feature. It wasn’t the same, but at least it filled the time.
For the three days I was off social media, I was very productive. I finally put away all my Christmas decorations and cleaned my room up from the aftermath of The Week Between Christmas Day and New Years’. But after re-downloading the apps, everything went back to being the same.
This entire experience, all four days of it, taught me that I depend on social media to connect with people. I don’t regularly check-in with old friends or classmates, I enjoy seeing what they post and knowing what they’re up to! Usually, social media is dropped because the user is using it in an unhealthy way. I don’t see myself as using social media for validation or for comparing myself to others. I use it to stay in touch with the people I care about and keep myself updated on what’s happening in their lives.
I eventually re-downloaded TikTok. Twitter will probably stay gone forever, but the other three are here to stay. I still have to work on managing my time better and not getting sucked into the time-wasting vacuum that is the Instagram explore page… but maybe that’s a problem of next New Year!
I think I’ll probably try leaving social media again another day, hopefully with better results, but until then…
Wow, so it really hasn’t hit me that this exhausting year is about to come to a close, and I have high hopes for the new year. I really do, but I still have to acknowledge my doubts. I mean, 2021 isn’t bringing a time machine for a 2019 do-over or an anytime-before-2020 do-over, for that matter.
I don’t know what to expect for this new year. Usually, I gear up for a new year with a new planner, filling it with birthdays and events, but doing that, after the traumatic year we’ve just endured, feels absurd.
Take Christmas, for example, I won’t even get to be with my family to celebrate. We don’t have a tree or a single light hung. My house is dark and empty, almost as bleak as 2020, so I can’t bring myself to believe that 2021 is going to be better. This year left a mark in so many ways, and I just don’t think we can truly celebrate and rejoice until we’ve unpacked that. Everything is in ruins, and I don’t mean to be pessimistic, but realistic.
I am so blessed to be able to live this life, and every day, I am grateful, but sometimes, gratitude doesn’t feel like enough. Though I am grateful, it doesn’t change the fact that I am unhappy, that I’m suffering in my own right. And if I’m being honest, this suffering began long before 2020, but in the fall of 2019. I haven’t been okay in a really long time, and I think it’s time that I acknowledge that because putting on a smile and braving the world is nearly impossible, and yet, I do it every single day. When does the façade end? When will I realize I can’t do everything on my own? When will I admit that these burdens are too much for one person to carry? When will I seek help? When will seeking help no longer be a sign of weakness to me?
When will I be honest with myself and everyone else? In 2021? Will this be the year of honesty and truth-seeking? Or will these past traumas continue to haunt me?
While 2020 was, in fact, a horrible year for the world, for me it was one of the best years. I have done more self-discovery this year than I have done any other year and have come closer to finding the person I truly am. I started with finding the person I wanted to be and noticing everything I didn’t like about myself and work on trying to change it. I wrote a blog earlier this year about self-change that I recommend you read, but this post is going to go more in detail about the changes I’ve made specifically, and hopefully what I say will help you guys make positive changes as well:’)
The changes I’ve made in myself– other than the way I dress– don’t include my physical appearance. Unfortunately, being self-conscious about our physical appearance is something everyone deals with– but we can’t change the way we look. I’ve struggled with the way I look since I can remember, and it wasn’t until this year that that changed. Sure, I still have my days, but for the most part, I’ve learned to let go of the negative perspective I made for myself on the way I look.
I remember one time in the 8th grade, I was crying about the way I looked. An adult found me and asked me why I was crying, and I explained that I hated the way I looked. I told her I felt like I was too skinny and didn’t have the body I wanted. She looked at me and frowned. “Aw baby”, she started, “you can just buy all that when you get older.”
I didn’t know how to feel about an adult offering me the advice of pretty much buying a new body. I have never been told to try and change the way I looked– I have always been told to just try and love the way I was made. And while changing the way I looked was a nice thought, I didn’t have thousands of dollars lying around and knew I wouldn’t any time soon. So, I did the next best option and just tried to love my body for what it was.
First of all– don’t surround yourself with others who put you down. I used to only hangout with friends that told me all the time the things about myself that I hated. “You’re too skinny” “You look anorexic” “You sound like a guy”… etc. Doesn’t matter if they’re “just saying it because it’s true,” you don’t need to hear it or have their negative opinion in your mind.
But the best advice I can offer you is to remember this: you are more than your physical appearance. This realization was really what lead me to self-love. I learned to stop caring about the way I looked when I learned to love who I was.
I live by the question, “are you who you want to be?” This was this question that made me realize I wanted to change. It was this question that helped me see that I wasn’t the person I wanted to be and I wanted to be someone I could love. I wanted to be someone I could be proud of. And so, with this question being asked, I worked to be the kind of person I wanted to be.
Well, what kind of person do I want to be? I asked. And all of these positive qualities that I want to gain came into my mind. I want to be a person people can trust. I want to be a positive person that helps others be the best person they can be. I want to be the kind of person I needed in the darkest times in my life. I have been trying to be the person I want to be for many months when I first asked myself that question and am proud of the progress I have made. I am only human, however, and I can’t seem to get it perfect at all times. But learning to accept the fact that you are human and you will make mistakes is the biggest step to forgiveness, which is essentially the foundation of positivity.
People are not perfect. People are going to mess up- make mistakes- but once you can look past their imperfections and love them because they are a person, you will find happiness through that love. Just like others, look past your imperfections and love yourself because you are a person. And everyone– every person– deserves love.
Since I will soon be heading home for a month-long holiday break, I wanted to do something special for my last blog on campus this semester. Today we are taking a trip down memory lane. I guess this blog is a bit of a picture diary. Last year, I made a video of videos from my time at MSA last year and put it on Instagram. I still love that video and plan to make another like it at the end of this year.
For now, I will settle for a collage of some of my favorite pictures from this year. Hopefully, once we get back, I’ll be able to make even more great memories!
Senior Weekend (August 21st-23rd)
Back on campus!
Reuniting with friends!
Decorating my dorm!
A classic MSA sunset!
Make-up Prom!
Pool Day!
Back For Class! (Sept. 8th-18th)
Not consenting to getting my picture taken
Hanging out before class
BINGO!
Juniors and Seniors back on campus together! (Sept. 28th- Oct. 8th)
Hulu’s new holiday rom-com has no doubt hit your radar this Thanksgiving. And it probably wasn’t for the best reasons.
“Happiest Season”, directed and written by Clea DuVall, tells the story of Abby (Kristen Stewart) and Harper (Mackenzie Davis) as they try to navigate a Christmas spent with Harper’s family, who is unaware that she and Addy are in a romantic relationship. It was released as Hulu exclusive content on November 26th, 2020.
As soon as it was announced, members of the LGBTQ+ community were overjoyed to hear that a holiday movie would center around a lesbian couple. When I googled “LGBT holiday movies”, only ten results appeared, so their excitement was understandable. However, upon the movie’s release, that excitement quickly turned to disappointment.
While I cannot speak on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community, I can speak as a lover of Christmas movies. So here are some of my thoughts on “Happiest Season”!
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PIECE INCLUDES SPOILERS FOR HULU’S “Happiest Season”! PROCEED WITH CAUTION!
It is not a romantic comedy.
Although marketed as a fun holiday rom-com, there’s nothing really funny about it. I think I made it through the entire hour and 42 minutes without laughing once.
It’s good for the first few minutes, but as soon as Abby and Harper leave to go see Harper’s family, Abby is just miserable for the rest of the movie. And that’s just sad to watch. The movie also carries more of a serious tone than a humorous one, so any jokes that appeared in it usually felt out of place.
it’s barely a Christmas movie
The beginning feels like Christmas. The ending scene before the flash-forward feels like Christmas. But everything in-between forgets about Christmas completely. There are no warm Christmas cheer moments that are a staple of the holiday classics! It just feels like a normal movie that just happened to happen during Christmas.
Abby and Harper
Abby (Kristen Stewart) is probably my favorite character in the entire movie. She wanted to meet Harper’s family under the impression that they knew she was Harper’s girlfriend. But when Harper waits until the last second to tell Abby that she hadn’t come out to her parents yet, Abby is fine with. She keeps their relationship and her own sexuality a secret just to keep Harper happy, because she loves her and Harper promises to tell her family after the holidays.
Harper (Mackenzie Davis) is probably my least favorite character of any Christmas movie that I’ve ever seen. She ditches Abby in favor of sucking up to her parents and hanging out with her ex-boyfriend! She gaslights Abby into thinking that she’s the victim and that Abby is overacting about certain things!
Eventually, Abby break up with Harper… only for Harper to run after her and convince her to stay. And Abby does… only to break up with her again, this time when Harper denies their relationship after being outed by her sister at the Christmas party (in front of all of her family and friends). I don’t feel like this should have to be said but apparently..
IF THE CHARACTERS IN YOUR CHRISTMAS ROM-COM BREAK UP TWICE, THE AUDIENCE ISN’T GOING TO WANT THEM TO END UP TOGETHER!
But of course, Harper runs after Abby again and they end up living happily ever after. woo.
My favorite part of the movie is when they broke up. I loved watching Abby tell Harper off, it was great. She deserved it.
a waste of Aubrey Plaza.
It’s just an objective fact that Abby should have left Harper for Riley.
Riley (Aubrey Plaza) was Harper’s first girlfriend from highschool. In my favorite scene in the entire movie, Riley tells Abby that when she and Harper were lifelong best friends that fell in love. But when someone found a love letter from Riley in Harper’s locker, Harper outed Riley to the entire school rather than come clean about their relationship. So ultimately, she and Abby were in similar situations.
Every scene with Abby and Riley hanging out or even just briefly interacting is just infinitely better than any other scene with Abby and Harper. The absolute best scene in the movie is when Riley takes Abby to a drag show to cheer her up! It’s really one of the only scenes in the movie that feels like Christmas!
Riley had chemistry with Abby that Harper NEVER did, not even in the being of the movie when they were a happy couple! I don’t understand why they didn’t up together.
the end.
the climax was stupid and I hated it.
Harper’s sister Sloane (Allison Brie) finds out about Harper and Abby’s relationship. She and Harper get into a physical fight that ends with a painting being smashed over Sloane’s head, a Christmas being tackled by three grown women, and Harper denying her and Abby’s relationship to her entire family. I didn’t enjoy it.
the ending was stupid and I hated it.
Harper receives no consequences for her actions and Abby just forgives her for everything. It’s such an unsatisfying ending and overall really disappointing.
In conclusion…
it was frustrasting to watch.
There is still so much about this movie that I haven’t even touched on!
The rest of Harper’s family (and how badly they treat Abby)
Abby getting arrested!!
John, and he’s subplot about killing a fish!
THE ENDING FLASH FORWARD!
But seeing as I’m almost at 1000 words on this post alone, I’ll just leave it here. Maybe I’ll revisit it for a part two next week?
A better Christmas movie with LGBTQ+ representation is “The Family Stone” and although it’s no where near perfect, I prefer it much more that “Happiest Season”. But hopefully in the years to come, there will be more than just ten options for LBGTQ+ Christmas movies!
There are no instructions for navigating collective trauma, this pandemic, or anything that has upended our happier, more vibrant times. We are winging it and a lot of what we’ve been giving off in the process has been dire, harsh, spiteful, judgmental— often rooted in anger, frustration, anxiety, and uncertainty. Under these circumstances, we are unlikely to bear optimal fruit.
It’s unimaginable that a single year could’ve had this many blows. I don’t know about you, but it seems, no matter how strong my upright stance, I still manage to catch a hook, jab, or uppercut.
This year has left me with cuts and bruises I’ll never forget, war wounds that’ll take a lifetime to heal, and dead limbs. Lots of lifeless limbs to prune.
Can I just say that we all need to do some heavy pruning…
I know that once we get rid of this straggly growth, these weak branches, and reconnect with our sanctuaries inside… Once we get our power restored— our lights back on… Once our world opens and we see each others’ big beautiful smiles again, we will find ourselves appreciating this strange and strenuous voyage. Like life after pruning, we will be more sound— our harsh branches, less invasive.
Hopefully, we will be wise enough to recognize our mistakes, and brave enough to name them.
Maybe we will come to realize how all these tiny, thorny, hurtful plants manifested into disdainful trees and resentful forests. Times are absolutely hard, but they are also ripe. If we are true planters— sowers— if we can imagine the harvest ahead, then we must continue to go through this pruning season.
Soon we will be standing, shears and all, trimmed and enlightened— surveying our scorched earth and tending to injuries we didn’t even know were there.
When the green returns, we will see, with new eyes, our fruit— our miracles and blessings— all the unnecessary branches we pruned back and how selective we were in doing so… We will wonder how we managed to go through all of that and come out in tact, safe and sound.
These past few months have been especially hard for me, and the global pandemic hasn’t helped.
I thought I had my whole life figured out. I thought I knew who I was, but man, was I wrong.
Being student body president, has been one of the greatest experiences. I get to wake up every day with a purpose because I love what I am doing. I love what I am cultivating within my community, but I won’t lie, it’s also been so hard for me. Before, my purpose was writing, but now, I’m a leader. I have people who look up to me, who are counting on me, and of course, I didn’t just stop being a writer. I will always be a writer. I will always have that passion and drive to write and to tell my truth, but now, I have two roles that buy for my attention.
I have to be a writer but I also have to be a leader, and some days, I just don’t know how to be both. I don’t know who I am. Am I “Maleigh, RISE editor-in-chief”? “Maleigh, literary artist”? or “Maleigh, student body president”? To choose, is one the hardest things because I am all at the same time, and finding a balance has been quite the challenge. There’s this internal battle within me, and I don’t who’s the winner.
Senioritis is very real, and if you think you will never get it, you’re wrong because it happened to me…
“I’m Maleigh Crespo, and I suffer from senioritis.”
Yes, it’s true. I succumbed to the pressure of senior year, but I am trying to find my way back, slowly but surely. I thought I’d give you a few tips that I’ve learned along the way:
It’s not like the movies, so stop trying so hard
Senior year is not like High School Musical or Twilight. There’s no epic romance or incredible self-discovery, so stop waiting for that to happen, and do your homework.
College is overrated— and overpriced
Don’t get me wrong, education is important, but with that incredible urge to simply not go to college lingering over your head, it gets hard to continue moving forward. I get it. College is also crazy expensive for no reason, and if finances alone don’t make you want to drop out before you’ve even been accepted, please let me know how you live life. It’s normal to feel these things, but if you’re the college-going type, please go to college. Fill out the arduous applications: type your name and email into the little squares a million times if you have to, write that essay that the fate of your future depends on, pester your counselor for the thousandth time about your class rank; do it all, but don’t give up. You got this!
Stop talking to that boy
Again, this isn’t Twilight, Bella. It’s not gonna happen, so please stop talking to him every night and get some sleep. You’ll thank me later.
PRIORITIES, PRIORITIES, PRIORITIES !!!
If you learn nothing else from senior year (or this blog post), I hope it’s prioritizing! I know you want to go out to dinner with the girls, but the girls don’t have a huge research paper due tomorrow at 11:59pm. Though you probably could’ve done both had you managed your time wisely…
Time Management
Keep a planner or schedule at all times. Hold yourself accountable. Say you’ll get things done and ACTUALLY GET THEM DONE. Be honest with yourself, and only pan to do things you’re really going to do. Don’t set yourself up for failure.
Learn the word “No,” and Use it Often
Stop agreeing to do things you don’t want to do or saying yes when you KNOW you don’t have time! Your friends will still love you if you miss one event, and if they don’t, you need better friends anyway.
Self Care
Treat yourself kindly, and make time for yourself! Don’t make too much time for yourself to the point that you aren’t being productive, but every now and then, do something nice, just for YOU! Please just take care of yourself— mind, body, and soul.
Senioritis is real, and you need to be aware of it. Don’t be in denial, but don’t be paranoid. It can happen to anyone, and that’s okay. You just have to recognize it and overcome it.
If you feel symptoms of this illness coming on, take the proper precautions to prevent it from derailing you from having an awesome senior year. Keep your head up. It does get better 🙂 (or maybe it doesn’t…)
