Hello, July

July 12, 2020

Hello, July

Birthday canoe from this week

I have been pretty absent on here lately, so I think an update is needed. My goal is to start posting once a week, every Sunday. I tend to keep my promises so I hope I stick to it!

The past couple months have been hard, harder than quarantine in France was at the beginning and harder than when I broke my arm in fourth grade and couldn't do my ballet exam. And for nine year old Avery, that was life shattering.

The world has been in a tumultuous state ever since the murder of George Floyd which sparked the (century old) Black Lives Matter movement to resurface to the media's attention. Since then, there has been so many weird things going on that I did not feel right just posting normally without addressing current events. Just today I searched news about Wayfair with my mom and like what the fuck is happening in the world?? Have I been blindsided for this long??

I post a lot about things on my instagram, @averythealien

Last time I published a blog post I was in the Montreal airport, coming home. I did the mandatory 2 weeks quarantine, my friends drove by with signs to welcome me home which I was totally surprised by and filled me with so much joy. Now I'm back working, I work at the Keg restaurant and at a locally owned, little pink ice cream store. Work is weird, wearing masks is exhausting, my hands are usually dry from hand sanitizer. But every measure we take is in effort of life going back to the way it was, or as I saw on Instagram the other day: "Are we really waiting for a return to normal, or are we ready to build something different?" My whole life has been based on the assumption that what I am doing or have done or will do works towards some greater good for humanity, even if it's on a community based, local level. I want to be a part of something that makes people's lives better. I want to live fully aware of the privilege I experience everyday that others will never. In this post I'm going to share 2 things I've written over the past month and a bit, and then to end some things I've consumed on the internet lately that will hopefully act as a necessary tension breaker and bring you a moment of content.

Piece 1: Something I wrote while in Quarantine in Canada this time

Day 3 of self-isolation. Quarantine is going okay, my room is completely organized which really brings me the utmost comfort. My mood is so much dictated by my space I need it to be a direct reflection of myself in order to feel secure. My kitten forgot who I was but is remembering me now, she’s warming up as the days pass. I woke up early, 6:30 am. I have a habit of doing that these days, no alarm clock necessary. I’m watching Normal People as the gray sky spills rain down from it. Rainy days are my favourite. I am alarmed by how quickly I can forget the person I was and the life I led in Paris and become the girl I am here again. I want to make pancakes but I can’t find the recipe in the pantry. I associate home with so many stressful memories and unhappy relationships. I’m using this time to rebuild my outlook on it, I’ll be stuck here for a while so I’m trying to not go mad. I got into my dream university, I just feel numb though. Of course it was supposed to happen like this. I don’t know why I was genuinely shocked about getting in. I’m falling in love subconsciously. I am at peace here, sanctuaried in my own home. I wonder how I’ll feel when I have to face the real world of seeing my friends I have not seen in ages, seeing ex boyfriends, running into past teachers at the bookstore. I think I wake up early because my body knows I need my alone time. Now more than ever. I need to sit in my hollowness sometimes, let the self-assurance seep in like sap does in tree bark, time to embed confidence and positivity into my dna. Two things that don’t come naturally. I hope I come alive this summer in a way I have never been able to before. I need to prove to myself that the girl I flourished into in Europe is still the girl I can be in Canada. That it’s not the place like I think it is and rather a new side of me. I just turned over a leaf that’s all. I really hope that’s the case. I believe all the versions of me at some point will mesh into one and I will be complete again. I’m hoping it’s sooner than later.

Piece 2: I wrote this very late one night but I had a big anxiety written breakdown on my 19th birthday after coming home from a gorgeous birthday spent in the mountains that was more or less based around the feelings I convey in this piece. Plus some good old "I'm home now and stagnant and I want to be accomplishing things and moving and I'm a year older now and so many people have done more things than me in their life at the same age." Essentially just an annual birthday meltdown (rockstar emoji followed by crying emoji)

Every single second of every day I am angry. My blood is boiling and my bones are aching of hurt for this world. For the people that live here, for the animals and insects and everything in between. I feel so limited in this human experience. That I will only get to go through life having been born in this place with this body and this life already laid out for me. I want to know what it’s like to be an elephant being hunted down through the desert for the ivory in my tusks. Would I even be aware of that as an elephant? Or would I just know that the hunters were bad and that I should run? Would I even be knowledgeable of the gold in me that they are hunting for? Would it matter?
I guess the point I’m trying to make is that I will never be reborn with brown skin or a stutter when I talk or have a devastating childhood or live in a war zone or watch my parents die at a young age or be taken advantage of growing up or from very early on be broken and already victim to the many brutalities this world has.
I am thankful I never had to experience anything like that. But I feel other's pain empathetically. I worry about the people who are just getting by everyday. And I mean really just getting by- who are one day away from a suicide attempt, one day away from starvation, one day away from the absolute worst moments of their lives.
How can people be okay with this? I knew this world was not fair but fairness is getting the same size popsicle as everyone else. Fairness is taking the loss and being a team player and getting caught for cheating and having to pay a parking ticket without arguing your way out of it.
There is no word to describe how some people have nothing, while others have everything. I take having privilege as a responsibility to give back and help others and be kind. I could not look at myself as even a slightly morally decent person if not. I do not know how to not be upset. I have been all my life. I think we as a species live too much for our little narration. The course of events that all strung together tell our story and make us who we are. But that is not how I want to live.
What is it like to be born into a religious cult? And overcoming that, how strenuous? How does the sunrise look in Australia while the fires earlier this year were blazing through the land, how would an Australian feel watching their home continent go up in flames? How infuriated do Americans feel having Donald Trump as a president, and how do they still have pride in their “land of the free” with the shame that comes with their presidency? Or do they hide their nationalism? How much of the current events are not seen by people who live in countries that monetize the media? What if they are never given the chance to find a better world out there?
So this is what is racing through my mind every, single, day.
I have breaking points sporadically.
While talking to my brother and putting my dishes away. At 2am crying in the shower after watching a really good movie. Reading, looking at the newspaper, inhaling any information about the world at all I suppose. It’s like my anxiety is not for me but for everyone else on this planet. Because I know that I will get through things, but I don’t know if others are able to.

Now, to lighten the mood, three things from social media this week. Click the links:

1. Yes these are real cakes wtf

2. Baddie energy

3. I need to see this irl ASAP