Hosting a Prom and Watching Movies to Feel

Prom with Ciycay was indeed a magical experience. I Love events like these so much I'm going to be hosting one. A small mini-prom in my friend Haruka's yard. She didn't have the desire to go to her school prom but her parents wanted her to have that magical prom experience portrayed in coming of age movies. My solution to the problem was having our own mini-prom. This will be a new experience for me and in all honesty I'm terrified that I'll have expectations and then fail to meet those expectations. I've collaborated at Prescribing Happiness to put on small scale social events and faced this problem. Obnoxiously high expectations. Then again comparing a fundraiser and business exposure event to a miniature prom is like apples and oranges. I think this will be my chance to change and learn to let go of high expectations for myself. If anyone has had experience with this and has insightful advice I'd Love to hear it.

In other news I've crossed off two more movies on my watch list.

Love, Simon

Ladybird

 Love,Simon and Ladybird. The first time I saw the trailer for Love,Simon I felt a surge of happiness. Not because I read the book (I really should) but because I have finally lived to see a trailer for a modern coming of age LGBTQ film. Back when I was in high school I struggled to find LGBTQ films in general. Don't get me wrong 90's films were great and I would happily watch A Single Man again but I just couldn't relate to the main characters. Times have changed. In Love,Simon the people that matter have no problem accepting him for being gay but he struggles to understand and accept himself. It's a different battle then facing religion based prejudice or social norms dictated by society. An internal battle rather than an external battle. That is type of story I aspire to write.
"Sometimes I feel like I'm on a ferris wheel. One minute I'm on top of the world, the next I'm at rock bottom." 
This quote resonated with me on a spiritual level. There have been times where my life would feel like a continuous state of euphoria for at least a week and then the next thing I know I'm bawling my eyes out for reasons that don't make sense and I relapse into a seemingly never ending state of fluctuating misery. Then the cycle starts all over again. 

Hours after watching the film I was inspired to take an old writing project based on my previous love life and shape it into a beautiful and inspiring coming of age story for teenagers. 


Ladybird on the other hand was the mother daughter movie I needed. When I saw the trailer I thought this may be the best movie to watch with my own mother. Maybe we could both relate to the characters and the mother and daughter realize how much they truly love each other but constantly fail at expressing it. Like us. I chose not to watch it with her because she is avoiding "sad movies" for the sake of her mental health. Which is the opposite of what I do. When my mental health is at a dangerous low I seek out a movie I know will hit me with the feels and make me mouth-wide-open-gasp-for-breath-ugly cry. Two scenes in Ladybird did just that. Crying from a movie is a reminder that I'm capable of feeling. When I'm depressed it feels as though I'm incapable of feeling Love, sadness, authentic happiness, empathy, or anger. I feel nothing but numbness. Empathy and sadness are emotions powerful enough to break through to me.
Anyway this particular film captured a balance of wanting more out of life and selfishly taking what you have for granted. It made me realize that I have done both of these things. In my relationships I always end up seeking more attention and dangerously lean toward the toxicity of codependency but I fail to appreciate the attention and effort the other person puts in. I also need to work on listening and compassion and understanding how severely my depression can warp my perception of the other person's feelings towards me. 
In the case of this film the mother had to work double shifts and miss out on seeing her daughter get ready for prom just to keep her in school, take in her son's girlfriend, and provide for her unemployed husband. Meanwhile the daughter wanted to leave the state, experience Love and sex, live in a lavish mansion, be popular, etc.

I think as time goes by these posts become more raw and vulnerable. And you know what, I'm okay with that. I have no doubt there is someone out there, maybe on the other side of the world who can relate. That's all for now. Stay tuned for another rollercoaster of emotions and sporadic updates.
-Just Jane   

"Crying is cleansing. There's a reason for tears, happiness or sadness."
-Dionne Warwick

I'm Both Motivated and Terrified

On the off chance anyone read my last post I enjoyed Sakuracon. However if I were a 2018 "story time" youtuber I would make a video and caption it something along the lines of "The time I almost died at con (Not clickbait)" What actually happened was; my throat felt a little itchy on Friday and I took two cough drops that were best by 2014 (Obviously I did not know this until afterwards) and slowly started to lose my voice. After an enchanting night at the masquerade ball with Ciycay I felt overheated, threw up a little, the world started spinning, and Ciycay tucked me into bed and listened to me ramble on about deep emotional pain that seemed to have come out of nowhere. I made a speedy recovery in order to make it to the photoshoot on Saturday and tried my best to spend time with my completely separate friend groups that didn't know each other. Then as one large group we all went to dinner at fancy restaurant. After we were all seated as a large two part party we quickly learned the prices were borderline unaffordable. Ciycay and I shared spaghetti to fulfill the lady and the tramp fantasy (minus the kissing part because the lady was coughing up a storm and downing burning hot tea) everyone else split either an appetizer or a cheaper meal and we all laughed at memes. 

After dinner Ciycay and I went back to the hotel to get ready for the rave. I had just enough energy and we went all out with a purchase of adult light-up shoes. We covered our faces in unicorn snot (Basically high end body glitter) turned on our shoes, and headed out for the night. The rave was almost as fantastic as we had hoped. I would've enjoyed it more if I had not been sick (obviously) the crowd was fantastic and the complimentary AMVs were probably nice to look at. I don't wear glasses during raves so everything is kind of an attractive blur. We headed back to the hotel and realized we lost our keys. We ended up getting new ones at the front desk at the hotel. To this day I'm still puzzled by the fact Ciycay said 
"We lost our keys." Implying the two of us have lost two separate hotel keys and needed two replacements. We were given one. Anyway because we had roommates we picked up hotel keys for them as well and made a note to tell them what happened so they don't try to get back into the room with deactivated key cards. I imagined that would've been stressful. When we returned to the hotel we were starving. I decided we should eat our leftover sandwiches (Thank you Subway) in the bathroom because of the nearly soundproof door. This way we wouldn't annoy our sleeping roommates with the obnoxiously loud sound of crinkling paper. I loathe the sound so much.

The last day of con was much more calm. Ciycay and I purchased obnoxiously cute plushies, took photos together at the photo booth, and his mom picked us up and I returned home to continuous stress. During con and during the ride home I thought deeply about how blessed I am to be surrounded by such loving and caring friends and to have a partner so devoted and willing to go the extra mile out of Love. Unfortunately the dark corners of my mind can't help but occasionally question whether or not I am truly worthy of such a blessing and whether or not I am giving back enough in return. It is too easy to think that I'm not. I also question the impact these thoughts have on my relationships with friends and significant others. These types of dark thoughts don't disappear after hearing a reassuring sentence. They fade in and out of my brain and occur at the most inconvenient times. They're a part of me I don't know how to edit or delete and their existence cannot be explained. At least not by me. 

Detailed description of my depression aside it is now April and life is moving forward. Pseudo summer is here (Pseudo summer; when every other day is warm and full of sunshine which gives you the illusion it's summer. Then the clouds roll in to remind you summer is in the near future.) A few days ago I went to an art store with some friends and ended up purchasing a .03 mechanical pencil which I did not know existed prior to entering the store. I also purchased a thick brush with bristles as soft as a cloud, and larger pencil case. I then proceeded to post my art on Instagram (@JanejiraDraws)and put my social media marketing skills to the test.

As the title of this post mentioned I am indeed both motivated and terrified. I am truly terrified of what the future holds because in reality jobs in the creative field are unpredictable. I'll either have more work than I can handle or barely make enough to cover one out of a billion bills. The list of tasks I need to do by August is immense when I think about it in depth (Which I shouldn't do if I want to avoid stress) I want to believe that my books will sell, that I will sell really nice photography prints, that my future patreon will be a success, my webcomic will have over 100k readers, that I will have enough financial stability to fund my hobbies and middle class living expenses, I want to believe that everything is going to be spectacular but deep down I am terrified. I don't know what's going to happen next or how I will feel if everything ends up falling flat. I don't know how I'll handle the success if everything does go well. I'm motivated to move forward and terrified of what the end result will be. However fear is not enough to stop me. 

-Just Jane

"No tears for the writer, no tears for the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader."
-Robert Frost