The realization that there are actual, mistake-making people living inside our parents and professors and peers is a strange one, and it often arrives with little to no warning. Most of us stumble into this knowledge without really understanding all of its implications, only feeling, somewhere deep inside, that these authority figures are suddenly smaller than they once were. Your teacher says something you find you for some reason can't agree with, or there’s a strangely intense conversation over the dining table with your parents. It might sound feel something like, Shit. (True story. It’s powerful.) You might also realize something about yourself. That you could be the one to argue something on the merit of your own thoughts. You could criticize power dynamics and sexism and racism and general terribleness, not out of sheer meanness, but because you’re capable of it. You—and this is when something explodes in the mind, something not completely tangible, but bright and interesting and warm—could actually know better. Flashback to high school. I was 16 and crying with a handful of anxious friends at their wits end beside me. I was hiccupping back tears and telling myself that I could only afford a few more instances of crying at school before it stopped being meaningful to people and became seriously embarrassing. Looking back at it now though, it was already meaningful, in the way that moments implicitly teach you something of who you are, and who you need to become. I was sobbing because I was wondering if there was something wrong with me and my inability ignore that everything, on some level, was wrong. I grieved myself as too serious, too much, and still talking. I hadn’t learned how to celebrate it. So few of us do. Moments earlier, a boy in my history class had cracked a joke that was not very funny and very dangerously sexist. In hindsight, I know that something about the entire interaction was the waving of a red flag before my tense, observing eyes, that humans can be clueless and cruel, that we all make mistakes. But I felt certain that I would charge. I, with my shaking hands and my lowered brow and my rising, indignant voice, could be counted on to rise to the occasion. And I did. In my naïve, hopeful explanation of why the joke wasn’t funny, the laughter that rose over my voice, was the birth of a promise: I wouldn’t let myself be passive. I didn’t want to ignore the sense of responsibility I felt when I saw or heard things that upset me, that hurt so much more than someone saying they hated my favorite band. No, these things wounded my being and was my duty to say something. I would later learn to articulate my indignation better, recognizing the force of these interactions as striking at the most vulnerable aspects of me as a sensitive, recklessly (or endearingly) passionate teenager just tired of being told about who she was, who she wasn’t, and what she could and could not do. I was learning that I didn’t want to shrink myself.I wiped my tears and went into the social area, not to confront those boys who had decided that they wouldn’t take me seriously, but to assert my own presence as someone who didn’t have to shrink from them. We sat together. We didn’t speak to each other. We twiddled our thumbs, avoided the familiar sight of the other, and made our peace in silence. I used to wonder if my classmates played these moments back in their heads as much as I did and sometimes still do. But if they do, it’s perhaps for different reasons than mine. 
When you’re learning about what it means to feel your heart skip across your chest before confronting someone about something difficult, you’re questioning whether you think it’s a worthwhile pursuit. Sometimes, the difficult conversations become the those where you learn to speak slowly, switching between subjects that are important to you in a language you would like to get to grips with. And sometimes, the important thing is the feeling—the location of your own authority—and the decision to keep going with the beat of the drum in your chest that you don’t have to show anyone unless you want to. One of my favorite writers Sara Ahmed has written about the experience of being a “feminist killjoy”: of learning the significance of criticizing, of drawing attention to the difficult things in life. So often, the reward of doing so is downplayed because you’re perceived as the one obsessively tracking behaviors that, according to everybody else, don’t exist. But the reward comes from being the one who is willing their voice forward, hoping to help, desperately wanting to.
“You should remember something,” someone once said to me after we’d argued about how privilege affects different people—an unrelated spiel that somehow took over the whole hourlong debate class yet again. It was a hot day. I was tired for a whole number of reasons. 
“There’s a whole world of people who think like me out there. Do you know how many of me you’ll run into?” He’d leaned forward so that I could hear him better. 
I was frowning, unsure of where this conversation was leading. 
“And how many times you’ll be glad you had these fights with me for practice before you’re out there fighting them?” 
Then, I was laughing with him, not quite sure what we were really laughing at and secretly wondering what it meant to constantly be engaged in the battle of proving yourself to those who seemed to stand above you. It was almost comedic, a stand-off between an adult and a KID, like something out of a family movie: Mr. Wormwood waving a finger in his daughter’s face in Ronald Dahl’s Matilda, and confidently proclaiming, “I’m right and you’re wrong, I’m big and you’re small, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” That feeling is a place so many of us understand: the misunderstanding of what you could possibly be saying in your quiet displays of defiance. I didn’t want to be fighting and arguing and labeling myself the girl you just had to shake your head at when she was being that way. I felt that I had to, because the whole world was full of words that weren’t OK and no one was saying anything about them when they were being said! This feeling, of wanting to correct yourself, of wanting to unravel all the assumptions that have been made about you, will always be familiar. As I’ve grown, it has comes back to visit me with ever more insecurity by its side, but my authority is bigger than it used to be, too. As soon as you feel it bursting inside of you, compelling you to feel more than you’ve felt before, to follow up on what you feel is right, it’s real and completely yours. It stays with you, growing and growing and growing. 
A few days ago, my brother asked me why I just had to care about everything so much. He’d turned away from his laptop, and my analysis of anime he’d been watching in peace, and regarded me with eyes that look so much like my own. I could tell that he’d noticed the way I could host two figures inside of my body: the happy, chatty, silly me he could laugh with and at, and the more complicated one. She emerged when there were difficult conversations to consider and sketchy storylines to take apart and weird shit to pull up and dissect. That was the me that made things seem heavier. I didn’t know how to answer my brother’s question. 
But is there an answer? A neat one? For so many of us, growing up means deciding what we consider worth protecting, that make caring an impulse, that are linked to who we are as people who wanting and need better than what we know. Caring just…happens. So when the difficult you emerges, I think it’s best to accept them. Even if you don’t fully understand them yet. Even if they’re just a small, niggling feeling. When I’m telling myself to keep my voice level as if I'm in my friend’s bedroom or a family gathering—because that’s how you convey rationality, according to a whole bunch of web pages. All I’m really asking is for someone to understand me, in the way that I have been forced to understand my own existence, I realize, with the sharpness of the same epiphany happening over and over, that the two versions of me just have to be allowed to be. And not in opposition to each other. Otherwise, I deny myself. 
The last time I refused to compromise my sense of authority was the last time I felt myself being asked to be invisible. It was after a party. The night was huge, I was small, and someone said something offensive to a friend and I stood my ground because it was the only thing I could do. With fly-away insults from men who were older and bigger than me, I refused to let them take up all of the space. 
During these flashbacks, I sometimes hate my sensitivity, the habit I’ve picked up of making everything my problem, and how I’m never really “cool” in the casual, disinterested way that you’re supposed to be when you decide nothing really matters and say, with that Lisa Simpson nonchalance, “Like, you know, whatever.” Sometimes, things really are, like, you know, whatever. But sometimes they aren’t. So often, you hope against all hope that you won’t be hushed into silence by a single word, a laugh, a doubtful thought, and you understand why it’s so important that you aren’t, that your instinct to care is worth preserving. 
Learning to trust your authority means letting yourself become who you want to be. It’s growing up amongst the grownups and learning that your sentences don’t have to stop when theirs do. You’re allowed to want to start a different conversation on your own behalf. Even if you can’t really tell who’s listening, it’s important to realize so many people are. 

Badder than ever // New Adventures

Good morning, afternoon, or goodnight. Wherever you are in the world and whatever time of the day you happen to be reading this at, I hope you know that you are wonderful and I thank you completely for taking the time to hear me out. it's been a minute since I tried to do this the last time, but I'm back and I'm excited to make this a regular thing. Here a some small facts about me to get started: 

1. my name is Arleen, 21
2. I love all things makeup
3. I love all things science 

Obviously you won't figure me out entirely in this post, but I hope you'll stick around to get to know me as I learn new things about myself. I'm most excited about what this new chapter of my life will consist of and I can't wait to share it with all of you. :) 

I’ve been thinking thinking thinking. I feel deeply that I’m going through a shift, a personal change that has been building up to this very moment. It’s weird, but it’s as if a wave came over me and I no longer have access to my former self. In the attempt to recover, I’m left only with picking up the pieces and figuring out who that person was, and how to reconstruct a better version of myself. On an isolated mindset, you’re constantly going against projections of who people think you are while also trying to figure out who you actually are. These projections rear their ugly heads in all aspects of life here. I’ve found myself looking outward in hopes to see myself peering back through someone else’s art. This week, the author Louise L Hay in How You Can Heal Your Life, articulated how I’ve always felt about process of self acceptance. The bits and pieces were read over and over again. It’s all I can do until I can find a better way to articulate whatever this moment in my life is. Yeah, I have a flare for the dramatic while being completely shy all at the same time, but it feels particularly important, as though I’m on the edge of something great or something horrible—no middle ground. And whenever I slip too deep into the blues that comes with being me. I find some form of upliftment in the work I see online, in cinemas, in books... but also within my friends and loved ones. Then, I’m reminded that everything will be fine and that in the end, I’ll come out of all this a badder bitch. So here's to a better me, and a better life, and new adventures. Thank you.

All love, Arleen 

Is it okay to be happy? sad?

hello there friends, strangers, and people who came across this post only to find out it was written by ME. don't let my childish behavior fool you, I'm wise, happy, and au fond a confident human being.
I've recently come to the conclusion that i am, generally speaking, a very happy person. I'm full of laughs that hurt so much i almost wet myself and smiles that make my cheeks sore every day!!!!
Did you know that happiness is a choice? yes... A CHOICE.
I've met so many people in the short amount of life I've lived who think that the reason I'm so happy all the time is because nothing bad has ever happened to me (which isn't true if you didn't catch on where this was going.)
I have a lot to be grateful for and i'm really good at expressing myself when it comes to things I'm proud of, like family, friends and my own accomplishments.

the one thing i don't love is feeling sad.
whenever i feel emptiness and loneliness creeping up on me, I wonder if it's okay to feel this way? I'm a happy person, so why am I sad? am I bummed out? depressed? Is it possible to feel so alone and desolate? to be honest, I still don't know how to answer these questions and i'll probably feel just fine in a couple of hours, like I usually do. maybe i'm not the only person in the world to feel this, so if you're looking for advice.. you probably won't find it here.

this is the part of the post where I tell you that no matter what you should always keep your chin up and to stay strong, but life is messy and sometimes a bitch, so feel whatever you have to feel in order to get through the day and be okay. what I will tell you is that everyone is going to feel a little miserable for reasons that we'll never be able to come to terms with and if we spent our time painting smiles and pretending like everything is alright- we'd never grow up and we'd never make mistakes.

I read somewhere that life isn't a 1960's sitcom, so remember that.