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

If you know me from school go away.Now. Close this tab

Dear Shakespeare,
I want to talk to you about seeing Tavi, but for some reason I can't bring myself to write about it yet. Hmmm maybe soon. In fact I really don't have the energy to write much at the moment. I will complain to you for a bit though, seeing as complaining seems to be my only talent.... (watch as I dot point, aint I clever)

• My scanner makes everything I do look ugly. Well I guess that assumes my art looks semi decent in the first place, but honestly, it sucks the color out of my pictures and it only fits a4 sheets of paper. Most of my stuff is on A3 sheets of paper or random scraps of stuff I find in my room 
• People from my school found this (collection of letters). I mean it's weird. One of the reasons why I love the internet (asides from the fact I can find almost anything) is that its such a great place for me to say what I like or post whatever sad attempt at poetry/art/diary writing I am working on. And I don't have to worry about it. Urghhh I give up. Whatever. Nobody has probably actually seen this thing/blog and I am simply overreacting 
• I am tired all the time. When I wake up it's the worst. I feel more tired that when I first fell asleep. People aggravate me, socializing leaves my head thudding and hurting. Why are people so fake and superficial? 

Anways because I am lazy I will just send you some pictures of things I have done-ish, please try not to laugh at their urghhhh-ness

    At Tavi's talk It's hard to see my collar or crown but they were really glitzy

So I tried to take a picture of some flowers and this happened 

                  

I tried to collage my ticket to Tavi's world

           

Photo thingy with a friend

             

Truly Mary, 

P.s. I'm working on a drawing/painting of you with new clothes. I figure that you must want to wear something asides from the heavy looking garbs you're always seen in on pictures online.

P.P.S. listen to this fabbity song. Outkast is too gr9

I'm seeing Tavi on Friday!!

Dear Shakespeare,

 How does it feel to be dead? Does the novelty wear off after the first hundred years or so? Was that an insensitive question? I am soo terribly sorry if it was. I seem to always blather about my inconsequential feelings to you that either make up angsty posts or, quite more often, ripped sheets of paper filled with my blue marker scrawl. Today I will refrain from warbling on about how I feel, it makes me think that I am far too self-absorbed, and I'm not even all that interesting, quite generic. At any rate, Shakespeare, I am EXCITED (oops, that's a feeling). Anyways  IM SEEING TAVI GEVINSON TOMORROW!! I won a ticket to attend her keynote after entering a competition on the lovely website birdeemag. I haven't the slightest idea what I shall wear, but I've made myself a junk tiara constructed mainly out of metallic pipe cleaners, Oh, I also made a detachable collar with random splotches of yellow and lots of plastic glitzy stuff I could find. Perhaps I'll send you some pictures of them soon.

My head is aching, truly thumping and moaning, so before I finish this letter in favor of seeking refuge in a corner of the room I wanted to show you some photos. Please don't judge me too harshly, this was the first ever photo-shoot I've done. I'm only a rookie, willing to learn. Alas, here are an assorted few:

Truly Mary, 

Poem?

Dear Shakespeare, 

I wrote a poem the other day. Well perhaps not a poem as much as a short jumble of prose.  It was inspired by a group of youths chasing around in the lush green of a creek behind my house. Alas, this is my attempt at a poem:

To be a tween

To frolic in neon brights

Heart set a flutter 

At the sight of a wink or a smile

Set against the dull glow of a pixelated screen

To be a tween

Heart so full with the bittersweet strength of youth

And the sacred promise of  a perfect adolescence

I am fifteen now

I feel akin to a downtrodden house mat

What ever happened to my promise of a perfect adolescence?

Did I leave it in the washing machine  for an hour too long?  

What do you think? Too angsty? Tooo melodramatic? Oh well it's how I felt

Truly Mary, 

First post

Dear Shakespeare,

I think it's high time we got us a piece of some internet.

I'm sick and tired of writing letters to you on the backs of my tattered chemistry or math homework, it must be such a challenge for your ghostly brain to decipher my incoherent scrawl which masquerades as handwriting. So ol' Shakespeare we're starting a blog. Well actually I'm starting my blog of letters to you, so all my generic teenage angst  and crappy attempts at poetry and style will be well documented. I tried a blog once, I tried really hard, but it soon became far staler than the lonely piece of  toast currently stewing in the bottom of my backpack (yeah I know it's gross, I call it Narnia gone wrong). I guess my first blog failed because I felt the overwhelming desire to emulate a certain style, a certain aesthetic, but like a lot of things unnatural I simply couldn't keep it up. It was a petty and pretentious attempt at a blog where I cared far too much if people read it and what  thoughts went through their heads as they saw my writing. I was just a desperate little fourteen year old wanting a horde of cool internet friends who wore blue lipstick, made zines and lazed around eating cupcakes for breakfast whilst engaging in intense Freaks and Geeks marathons.

 Actually I still like blue lipstick, and zines, and cupcakes, and freaks and geeks,  but this time I'm just writing to you, and instead of this blog being a place where I feel the need to conform to a certain vibe I want it to be a place  like an online diary or journal. Where everything I post is something that directly relates to the constant transformation that is me (man, I sound like a fricking butterfly). I have no idea why I feel that you are interested in the life of an average teenage wallflower like me, but after that time I broke down in English class whilst reciting Macbeth I felt like asking you questions, and writing to you in the hopes that you would help me understand your work. GOSH SHAKESPEARE when are ya gonna answer all mah questions???

PS. Can ghosts float inside the internet Shakespeare? Is the internet actually a magical world where flying cats are the kings and queens and my horrid school uniform is exchanged for some lovely Meadham Kirchoff attire? I hope so

Truly Mary,