Dear Diary, it happens over and over

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So I met up with a couple of friends last night to marathon watch Teen Wolf, which was something we had planned to do for a while because a) The Tylers and b) Werewolves and c) Them suddenly finding themselves shirtless in the woods. And I was having fun most of the way, I like Teen Wolf, it's definitely not my favorite show and it has it's problems but I like it, but near the end I felt awful and fidgety and the last thing I wanted to do was watch Teen Wolf with my friends. To watch anything with anyone.

My mom came to pick me and my friend up because she needed a lift. I sat in the car and I laughed for a while and made normal conversation but my contentment was suddenly putrid and I stopped bothering to talk once we dropped my friend off. All I wanted to do was absolutely anything that I wasn't going to do that night. Because I knew that what i was going to do was fall into the place I have habitually carved out for myself. I'm going to get home, make conversation with maybe my sister, take a shower, dry my hair, watch an episode of something, get changed, try and write, go to bed. Over and over.

So I was sitting with my shoulders hunched forward, my elbow resting on my leg and my head resting on my hand, eyeing the world on the other side of my window with my mom's lighter under my thumb, letting it spark and glow then die again next to my face. Over and over.

I wanted to drive and keep on driving, cut my hair off with my craft scissors, set fire to the sexist "help wanted" signs in front of that restaurant, stand in a pool of blood, just walk and keep on walking alone, cut open living flesh, sew up a wound, sit and talk to that stranger at that cafe, get into a fight, throw something to break a window, I wanted to do something that I'd never done because I realized how long that list is. I've been thinking about this for months but I think the best way to describe this feeling would be violent murk.

 It was short lived but it was too powerful for me to ignore.

I want to say that I know what it all means and that I know why I keep feeling this way (because yes, it's happened before) and that I know that it's normal, but I can't. All I'm going to do is hope that it's normal.

Maybe this is what an early quarter-life crisis feels like.
-Maggie ☾

Diaries and Documenting

So in my last post I mentioned that I've been keeping a diary since I was nine. I really like a lot of the pages I've done in the past year. The diaries from early 2013 and before are just...I can't read them all the way through without stopping and staring into an invisible camera like I'm on The Office. I think I'm going to have to wait a few years before I get back to them.

This is my diary from this year:

These are the less word-heavy pages. I write in extensive rants on some days, but on others I kind of just want to cut and paste things and listen to music.

It's just a wad of messy handwriting, song lyrics, drawings I did in classs and pictures I liked/took. It's nothing incredibly moving - in fact, they're often incredibly dull - but I like not having to care about how it looks or how entertaining it is, because to me it's about venting and about looking back and remembering the stuff I don't ever want to forget and about appreciating the kind of stuff you notice once you take a second to think about it.

 I like being able to read what song I thought perfectly described how I felt that night whilst thinking about a certain boy (Pictures of You by The Cure), and I like knowing what I was really thinking about whilst a teacher was writing nonsensical formulas on the board, and reading how hard I tried to make what I was feeling make sense using my short list of meaningless words shows me that I've felt the way I'm feeling before, and that I got through it.

Knowing how I got to where I am now, though it is certainly not my destination, is really important to me because it's first hand proof that I've changed and that I'm growing up and that I'm closer to being the person that I want to be.

Emotional rant over.

- Maggie ❁

Me Saying Hey

Hello, my name is Maggie and I'm a teenager from South Africa.

You have no idea how many tries it took to get that simple first line right. The middle bits are easy, but ice breakers are hell.

I've been really into the idea of starting a blog for a while now (If I had to place blame for this, I think it would probably go to the best people ever over at Rookie). I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to write, but I think telling you a little bit about myself might be a good start.

I've always had a love for writing, but I've never been very good at sharing it. I get so attached to what I write, it becomes so personal, that sharing it feels far too private. I've been keeping a diary since I was nine, and of course I've never shared them with anyone because, I mean come on, they're diaries. So the writing I've done, and the writing I'm proud of, I don't think I can share. Which really sucks when you feel like you might have something interesting to say. So that's what this is.

I'm putting my confidence into strangers.

So when I want to talk about something or when I want to feel like what I say is going a little further than the surface of a piece of paper, I can come here. And I can feel like I'm maybe connecting with someone out there.

I think that, for now, that's an adequate introduction. I guess I haven't really told you anything about myself at all, but maybe you can gather that information by reading some of the other stuff I write.

Thank you for getting this far!
-Maggie ✩