I'M APPLYING TO COLLEGE NOW
i knew it was going to be stressful but oh god what if they don't like me what if they think i'm boring or i'm trying too hard or my love for the things i do doesn't come across or i forget to send one of the fifty things they ask for or what if i accidentally fill something out wrong oh god i'm panicking i just really really want to get an education and i'm so grateful i'm able to but oh my god i didn't expect the process to be so personal and dig so much into my insecurities IT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS

SUMMER.

I love summer vacation.
It's basically this big two-month block of time that school throws at you and says "Here! Have this ridiculous amount of free time, it's on us!"

The experience leading up to summer vacation is a lot like online shopping when you order an particularly large package filled with clothes and food and whatever else you wanted. You relentlessly track it online as it moves from USPS station to USPS station across the country, waiting and waiting for it to finally be here. (Unless you have Amazon Prime, in which case you get two-day priority shipping, you lucky dog)
But when it's finally here, it is amazing.

I love the freedom of summer too.
During the summer I can either spend a day at the beach or go out and be productive or hang out with friends, or I can sit at home binge watching Gossip Girl and bad rom coms while eating Ben & Jerry's.
And nobody can judge me for it because that's what summer is all about.

looking back on my experience as a blogger.

Hi again! (Does anyone even remember me to begin with?)

The hand is either a wave or a high five - you pick

I've recently come back to Blogger from a very long 2+ year hiatus.
I made a couple of posts since 2011, but nothing more than a post every few months where I would feel this urge to type something up and post it on here.

If it's ok with you, I'd like to tell you about the past couple of years of my life, and the effect blogging has had on it. (I'm warning you, it's sentimental!)

At first, I left because I felt like I had too much going on in my life.
To quote my post from December 2011, "I might disappear again for a while, but it's not because I've been eaten by a mythical creature, but my extreme workload has basically caught up to me." 
And that's true.
8th grade me probably felt overwhelmed with the constant drama and gossip of middle school as well as the terrifying thought of going to high school. (Of course, I exaggerated with the "extreme workload" bit in order to justify the whole thing to myself.)

But as time went on, I was never able to come back fully because I felt that I had nothing meaningful to talk about. I felt like I had lost my blogger "voice", and no matter how much I tried, I couldn't produce something I was happy with.
Over the past two years, I had been welcomed into this incredible community on Blogger, and I just didn't want to let anyone down by writing posts I wasn't happy with. 
So I just stopped writing altogether.

And life went on.

But I did came back from time to time. because this blog became a place where people would listen and offer their thoughts when no one else in my life would. And I don't think I could ever give up on something like that.

Yesterday, I started unfollowing blogs that didn't hadn't posted anything new this year. And it was sad and nostalgic because some of the blogs were the exact same as I had remembered them three years ago.
Yet, miraculously, some of them are still alive and updating. And I was delighted to see some of the ones that I remember the most vividly are still active. (Namely Furree Katt, Fang Talks, Hello, Zaynab, The Run-On Sentences of Life and ShuRin ShuShu)
Reading through them, it feels like I never left.

And that's what I love about blogging.
Even though it's not as popular compared to other platforms (Such as Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and the list goes on), what I love about blogs is that for the most part, you have only have words to play with.
There's only an extent to which a fancy layout or stunning photography or endless filter options will help you on a blog.
Because when it comes right down to it, blogs are only as good as the words you put into it. 
Posting forces you to establish your own voice, because your voice is what keeps people coming back. 

And that appealed to me when I started, a middle schooler latent with insecurity, because this place had the potential for me to express myself and share my opinions in a way that wasn't restricted by looks, social standing, or trendiness of clothing.
(The first and only time I ever posted a picture of myself was when I wrote this guest post for Jodie-Ann's blog)
I was able to define myself by my words, as opposed to letting myself become defined by my appearance.

I loved that.

I loved that I could write about whatever I wanted however I wanted.
I loved that I could
type
like
this,
and I loved how I could share stupid little anecdotes, swap advice, or just rant about what was bothering me at the moment.
And most of all, I loved how people listened.

I poured my soul into this blog.
It became so intimate and dear to me, that I've only shown it to one person so far. (Who I think has long forgotten that this existed)

It's not that I was bullied in middle school, but I just never felt like I fit in and I felt like nobody really liked me for me.
But on this blog, for the first time, I felt like I truly belonged in this community of people. And that meant the world to me. 

So, this post is one big thank you.
To every single one of you who have supported me, who have read my posts, who have commented, and most of all, who have helped build me this place where I could find refuge within the posts and the anecdotes and the memories.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

i'm scared.

Since I was young, people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up.
And when I was little, because being a "grown up" seemed so far away, I thought I could be anyone I wanted to be. (Because I would eventually get there anyway with all the time that I had left)

I wanted to be President. I wanted to be an Olympian. I wanted to be a firefighter. I wanted to be the person who lit the fireworks on the fourth of July. I wanted to be the weatherman on the news. I wanted to be a voice actor for Disney. Hell, throw in my own Disney TV show while we're at it too.

And now, the future is a couple of years away.
And the time I thought I had vanished with it.
I turn 18 next year. I'm one year away from adulthood.
And that's scary. Because 17 years later I still don't know what I want.

People tell me that I should follow my dreams. But I should also be realistic.
What does that even mean?

It's funny because since I was a kid, I wanted to grow up.
I wanted to push a shopping cart around and buy my own groceries and have a career and accomplish real things and wear high heels to work and to have a briefcase and drink coffee in the morning while reading the New York Times (like the actual articles and not just the comics section).

And now that it's actually time for me to grow up, I don't feel ready. I'm scared of change. I'm scared of committing. I'm scared to decide where to apply to college. I'm scared of leaving. I'm scared of moving on.

I know that it's going to happen and it's going to happen no matter what, but that doesn't make me any less scared.