to be or not to be.

a thanks to my favourite LA resident for recommending this song. you can download it free here.

Andrew Bird - "Oh No" from Jenny Huang on Vimeo.

Parents will always tell you, reputation is everything. You’re always in favor of the motto, until it doesn’t work in your favor. Just like anything in life. It is hard to judge though—the moment you no longer seem to be a free spirit but loose, friendly (to everyone) and therefore disrespectful (flippant even), physically mature but mentally unaware. Of course, this is in reference to partying, alcohol and the like…the hours when you loose your natural ability to be less impulsive at any given instant. It isn’t an excuse, but—maybe—can it be a reason? I am not too sure. I hate excuses—and for the last year, I have instinctively caught myself from falling back on them. But I still experience the urgency to explain myself—explain myself in the situations when my reputation could have been compromised—when I seemed mindless and unconcerned. Because in truth, I feel like I am hyperaware and concerned, so how/when/why does it go wrong?

I think I am eager to have a balance in my life. And for the last year, I have again found myself acting in extremes. I flee Manhattan because I have begun to feel extremely self-contained there. I feel unnerved—under pressure—contaminated. This wasn’t always the case. In fact my first two years there, I remember how beautifully I responded to the city—to the pace—to the limitlessness and the options that extended to eternity. I believed Manhattan was responsible for how quickly I became healthy and for that I thought I would to some extent be dependent upon it.

But over the past six months, I feel like my personality at this period in my life isn’t harmonious with Manhattan. I’m too hard on myself, I’m never satisfied by the amount that I have done—that I have succeeded at—I have less life in me being there, I’m shy and too aware of MYSELF (which I hate and find to be smothering). Time only goes more quickly as we grow—expecting the future, trying to live fully in the day (for ourselves and for the ones we know we need). 

I walked so many streets alone, road so many buses through the cold, trying to find the way to extend beyond myself—to find the way to achieve my dream (living and studying in New York City). But then I did, and I only began walking faster. As I flew in strides down streets, I could always hear myself wishing I would slow down and remember the avenues more, memorize the apartment curtains, study the light as it hid behind the trees spread like rakes, overhear more conversations instead of inventing my own lines. I haven’t wanted to weave through parks, looking straight ahead—but I do. I haven’t wanted to immortalize young adults raping one another's souls—but I have. I wished I would let go of myself, and watch the children going in circles on the playground tires. See the fabrics of the dresses, the characters on the backpacks. I wanted to see how the small details that meant the world to us in our youth had changed for today’s children, much smaller then me. But somehow I have just let myself keep walking—almost hoping I wouldn’t see it—hoping I wouldn’t wish I was still them. 

Instead, eleven-year-old boys skate past me to meet up with the young girls—the young girls that should be too innocent to be wearing peter pan collars and miniskirt uniforms or neon pink tights and dock martens, cursing and making noise. I watch as the boys (all of five feet) lean their boards against their leg and let the girls kiss them (laughing after them—their coral lipstick stained beneath the curve of their cheek). And I think how quickly Manhattan makes you live distanced from your youth—how quickly it convinces you to walk away from it and rush to where the kids out of college are spending their time (but yet, they haven’t even reached high school, why are they trying to be someone not relatable?). And this almost makes me regretful—as if so many of us are behaving insincerely. What is better to follow a majority of the time: your desires or your needs? What constitutes for living life, if your life is yours?

I write often of the split subject. How I feel I am spread between two cities—one leg on one island and one another. Letting some in easily—without thought—but others guarding them off, shutting them down. I come home to force myself out of comfort zones (but with still having support since it is “home"). Traveling has become a motivation—the goal, so all the work, focus, and entrapment in Manhattan has some purpose or rather, ending point. When I am here I learn from other people. I don’t just learn like I do in Manhattan from my reactions within an environment. But I listen to people—I let myself be surprised—I let myself be sober to who they are and why. On Saturday this girl I had just met was telling me how her mother had just died. I have never cried—ever—from something like that. But on Saturday, I did. Her story scared me—it scared me how someone can be lost in a heartbeat. I hate feeling/assuming I am invincible. I hate concealing my body when one day I could get in an accident and loose some part of myself. I hate letting time fall away quickly, when time is all one needs. As much as I needed/wanted to let loose this weekend because it is something—some side of me that is so much a part of me—I know I let myself become too loose. Whenever I drink too much, I wish I could have pulled back. I wish instead of trying to be something for so many people, I was more for just one other. Why? Because I need my memory. I want to remember the substance, the words, I want to be aware of myself. And I’m afraid sometimes all I remember is black, darkness.