viva la vida

00:38 thoughts

i'm only allowing myself to write for thirty minutes because i would be pouring my heart out for hours if i could. there's been a lot on my mind for the past week and it hurts my head so much that i can't sleep until i talk to someone. even if this is just a heart-to-heart with my lonely ass for the rest of the world to see, i just want to write. i probably won't be arsed to edit this, so this is all just raw content. things i'm going to talk about:

~general update
~people and social media
~manchester attack and humanity
~my writing

first off, may has been the hardest, grittiest yet most eye-opening month. it feels like i've had a major slap to the face by reality. and not a cute little tumblr slap to the face like "do your own thing and the right person will come at the time you least expect them to". no. it's been real. i've landed myself in being grounded for the first time in years (no laptop but i can have my phone) and i low-key hate looking in the mirror and hearing my own voice.

something that's been on my mind lately is people and how i see them. i'll admit, i can be judgemental as hell. i can be both a sardonic asscrack and a unicorn, with only a thin line between them. but there's a particular person that's come to me in a different light, and it just makes me realise how wrong social media painted them out to be.

i've never been this person's best friend. we've never fought, we've been civil and friendly to each other but there was just something about them that i didn't click with. their social media presence. they posted pictures and asked people of their opinions of their face and their body. i thought it was wrong. i never said anything about it, because who the hell am i to do that? i guess i was a bit jealous of all the compliments they were getting but i could never imagine myself posting a selfie and getting fire emojis from people or them telling me i was gorgeous or something. i've never been really been complimented on my appearance like that person has, i've gotten more compliments on my work ethic at school. i'm ok with that, i appreciate all positive words i've received and i'm definitely not fishing for compliments with this.

what made me see the person in a different light was talking to them in a simple 20 minutes. despite all those selfies and pictures, they still had problems. and i hated myself for believing that their life was perfect through some social media. during those 20 mins, i was not seeing someone shaped by selfies and likes and comments, i was seeing someone genuine. i was seeing someone my age struggling too, despite the amount of friends they had, the cool clothes they had, their abilities and the amount of people crushing on them. it made me wonder how many people i think i know and think about whether anyone thought of me like i did of that person. something that i took away from that is to not take social media so seriously. it's just a fun way to share experiences, with real people in those pictures. it will take me a bit of time to keep this lesson in my brain but i know it will save me and others so much sadness.

the other thing i wanted to talk about the manchester attack. if you've been living under a rock, on monday night, a bomb exploded at an ariana grande concert in manchester and killed 22, injured 50. many of them were kids and teenagers. kids! kids for god's sake! kids who looked forward to that night for weeks and who only my wanted to enjoy themselves. teenagers who wanted an escape from the pressures of society and sing until their throats were sore and turn up to school the next morning tired yet happy as ever. innocent souls were killed for something that was meant for peace and safety.

on thursday, my school held a one minute silence for the victims at 11 o'clock and since then, i've really thought about it. i listened "one last time" by ariana grande today and i burst into sobs because i'm hurting so much for all these people, all these families, the whole world. i can't imagine what they must be going through.

i'm praying for humanity. i'm praying for society. and prayers aren't going to change anything; they're not going to bring people back. i wish i could do something. i wish we could all solve this. but it isn't this easy, i know.

i wish people weren't killed for loving people, i wish people realised that terrorism is not correlated to islam, i wish people realised that black lives matter, and i wish people knew how broken our youth is. people are out there getting raped, harming themselves, struggling with mental health and all these topics are intimidating and taboo to talk about. humanity is messed up. and i relentlessly believe that we can change that, no matter how long it takes. we built all these stereotypes, all this hate and we can break it. i'm naive, i know, but something i wish to see is teenagers not being afraid to come out and talk about all these issues. our kids will be spoiled because our generation is beginning to make history.

the last thing i want to talk about is my writing. i haven't written about it in this book but i just want to pour my heart on this.

it's hard. writing is so hard. it's draining, time-consuming but it's addicting. sometimes i think, "why am i doing this? why am i spending my time with this laptop with these people that don't exist, stories that have been done before, writing pretentious words that will never see the light of day on bookshelves? why am I not out there playing sports and dating and shopping and caking my face with makeup? why am i doing this?"

writing is an escape. it's my salvation at the end of the day, it keeps me going through the day.

i've never been a very sharing person with my writing. when we're forced to write poems and short stories at school, i whip cardboard characters out of my brain with crappy stories because i have no time to do anything else. i don't write in my mother tongue, the words just don't flow like they do when i write in english. that means i don't show my family my work because i'd have to translate it all. my friends don't give two craps, which is fair enough. so it's just me and my brain. me and the characters that were created in a time of sadness, with stories created at 2 am when i couldn't sleep.

it's sad sometimes. sometimes i feel sad whenever i reread it because people have all these views and expectations of me. apparently i'm really smart. i have above the intelligence of an average potato. and i let it all get to my head last year but i don't care anymore. i'm fed up of constant pressure of every corner of my life and writing falls in that.

apparently i spend more time writing my books than doing schoolwork. and that hurts. it hurts so goddamn much because when i'm sitting alone with a laptop, regardless of whether i'm revising or writing, no one really sees how much of myself i pour into my work. it hurts because it feels like everyone thinks it all comes with a click of finger. it hurts because people don't acknowledge that i put in the hard work, and that's why i'm "smart".

i'm sorry, this was all complete bs. i hope to start posting something new soon. i'm so excited to reveal the title and the blurb, but i'm not even 100% certain i'll post because who knows how the second draft is going to turn out. the only hints i'll give: through the perspectives of both a boy and a girl, and smashing gender stereotypes.

but this just makes me want to thank you. thank you for existing and breathing and reading and putting all your effort into what you're passionate about. not enough people get thanked for doing them and it shouldn't be that way.

andddd i just wrote for over an hour. nothing surprising. thank you for reading, a d hey, let me know what you're thinking about. how's your day been? what are you feeling?

stay strong, stay smart

antoana xx

edit: it's the morning and i've looked over and fixed a few minor mistakes. damn autocorrect.