Our day and age is so self-referential that I think it has made a monster out of me.
This will be the summer I learn to loosen my grip on things that don't matter. In 60 years, it won't matter to me whether or not I was able to record every single little thought I had while I was 23. But it will matter to me if I lived fully and lightly and freely. I need to give myself fully to these moments that make up my life. I can't be one step ahead trying to record them or one step behind trying to observe them. I need to be inside of them. There won't be anything to remember if I'm not there to experience it – to feel it – in the first place.
The way my insides get anxious when I think about the effects of snapchat private stories, Phoebe Bridgers' songs, instagram posts of the contents of a girl's journal – all encapsulated by my girl's lyrics, "Is it romantic how all my elegies eulogize me?" GIRL no stop it. Maddie Joyner needs to stop it.
Maddie Joyner is changing. She is going to let go of these inconsequential things that structure her days and cause unneeded anguish. She is going to live presently with Jesus and go from there. She is going to live a full life and do the things she wants to or feels like she ought to do. Hopefully without much, if any, regard for what people think she should be doing or what she thinks people think she should be doing (commonly referred to by Maddie as "the rules").
Is it ironic that my reflex was to pull out my laptop and make a post about this? Prob
(post prompted by Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close post my week at Windy Gap. Life is fleeting and full of beautiful details that I don't want to miss.)
