And again...

Currently sitting on the couch in my apartment, surrounded by several days of unwashed dishes and piles of dirty clothes wondering how exactly I let things get like this.

Finals, for one.

And the thing that sometimes happens where I start to have to make choices about what I can bear to do in a day, and what I can bear to do doesn't include cleaning.

But the problem is, the way that works, is that very quickly things start to pile up and get harder and harder to deal with, as I similarly get less and less equipped to deal with them.

It's easy for me to use failures as excuses to give up entirely.

Didn't have enough time to work on an essay to the best of your ability, so what you hand in isn't something you're proud of? If you're me, this is a great time to assume that you're just going to have to avoid that professor for the rest of your life and spend lots of time hating yourself for your inadequacies.

Didn't do the dishes one night? Just keep not doing the dishes! Live in squalor! Leave your clothes on the floor!

Of course, that's not a very healthy or productive way to live, but thinking about all of the things I have to do can make doing anything at all feel nigh-on impossible.

I can,  however, start small.

I can wash one dish and put it away
and then another one
and then another one
until at some point, a few hours from now, I'm sitting on the couch again but this time everything's clean, and I'm eating homemade chili and listening to music and thinking about how all of that seemed insurmountable not too long ago.

But it wasn't insurmountable because every moment only exists on its own, and can be borne as such.

"Here was a second right here: he endured it. What was undealable-with was the thought of all the instants all lined up and stretching ahead, glittering."

Maybe it's pretentious to quote DFW here but part of why I love his writing so much is that, amongst other things, it introduced me to the idea that no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable.

And the fact that what feels unendurable, a lot of the time, isn't something particularly mountainous or painful, or would seem insurmountable to anyone but yourself. And that's ok too.

And sometimes on the other side of the mountain is a bowl of chili and a good book.

((with any luck, I'll be back before the end of the day with a photo to prove I made it))

---

Update:

I made chili!

Apartment is still a mess, but better than it was before

And I feel a little better now

Not amazing, but better; like I'm moving.

and tomorrow I'll be back to try again

xo

- Ella

Hey!

So I guess this blogging every day thing didn't really work out.

That's alright — I have my actual journal that I think is more useful for me for everyday writing, so I'm shifting back to that, hopefully. The pressure to keep things clean and polished and not quite so personal when writing here I think has kept be from being able to write consistently (because I'm not consistently clean & polished in my real life, if you know what I mean).

This summer has been hard in a lot of ways but I'm still pushing through it, trying to take things one day at a time and make positive changes going forward. I'll still be posting on this blog, but only in full post format when I feel like I have a piece of writing to share with the world.

Onwards and upwards into August, one month left until I'm back in Montreal and moving in to my new apartment. Big changes on the horizon, a whole lot of waiting in the meantime.

Here goes nothing!

— Ella

Stress that isn't mine

You can feel the presence of stress in a room like some kind of heavy fog.

My place at the very bottom rung of the ladder in terms of authority at my current job  means I have no reason to be stressed 99% of the time. I'm a tech assistant, stage hand, front of house assistant, answerer of voicemails, runner of errands. In a lot of ways I'm essentially a glorified lackey - anything anyone needs done, they can delegate it to me and I'll do it. This affords me a strange vantage point from which to look at the goings-on of a professional company.  I'm not stressed because I have no real responsibility. Everyone else on the other hand, well...

Sitting backstage watching actors run back and forth freaking out about lines missed or cues skipped; the stress of things going wrong with tech — all normal and reasonable things to be expected at any point in a run, but basically inevitable on opening night when we've only had one preview (there's usually at least a week of previews before opening). It's strange to see it happening outside of me, especially seeing as I'm someone who very easily gets stressed or anxious for basically no reason.

Anyway, my break is almost over now so I've gotta get back to that but I figured this was something to write about for today.

Thoughts from the road

A long and full day again today, but things should be settling down starting tomorrow I think, since I don't have to start til 3 instead of 1:30 like I did today.

Anyway, thought of the day comes from riding the uhaul truck back from the site this evening — I'd never been in a truck before, and it was so strange to see the view of the city from so much higher up than I'd ever seen it before. It was really pretty (I have a thing for skylines, I know), but also weird to think about how much I don't see on a regular basis. Talked about that in a conversation on the way there today as well, about how there's so much to learn and see and experience in the world but it's so hard to actually get to even a tiny fraction of it.

I will never read every book, or listen to every piece of music, or go to every place, or talk to every person, and the world in which I live will always be so small. That's just part of what it means to be alive. But still, compared to even a couple decades ago, or to other parts of the world, I have access to so much more than people could have even imagined. Huge systems of privilege afford me the luxury of choice in what I spend my time exposing myself to, and I guess in the grand scheme of things it's a pretty nice problem to have. It just means I have a certain amount of responsibility, I think, to consider what choices I'm making and why.

You'll never see the whole sky, that shouldn't mean you have to point your telescope at only one constellation forever.

So many long days

I'm very tired now and about to go to sleep but nonetheless, still here, writing every day.

Since I lack the energy to have any real coherent thoughts, here's the song I've had on repeat for the past three days. I fucking love Mal Blum.

Tired!!!!

Worked 9am to 9pm today, tomorrow's 10-9, and then tech week is over and we're officially on tour with the show! So then I won't be starting work til like 2pm, but getting home late at night. Hopefully that'll be slightly more conducive to writing? 

I'm EXHAUSTED and I'm definitely gonna be in pain tomorrow, but one thing I can say for sure is by the end of this summer I'll be in shape again from all the time spent lugging set pieces and tech equipment around. Also — lifting with your knees? I always vaguely knew of that as a thing I should do, but only today did I truly realize how important and useful it is. Drop a squat before you pick up heavy things!! It makes it so much easier and you have much fewer regrets.

Wish me luck not dying when I have to do this again tomorrow,

- Ella

Walking up a big hill

It's tech week, so lots of long days!

At least that's how I'm explaining to myself why I never have enough time to write anything considerable lately...

So instead of much writing, you get this photo I took when I had to stop and take a breather while walking my big up the huge hill that's on my way home from work. Like... I consider myself a pretty out-of-shape person, but honestly this hill huge. The exhaustion is justifiable. Also the sun was setting and it was pretty and I'm a sucker for skylines.

I've also found this coconut-based yogurt that's SO good and I've been eating it with strawberries as a dessert-y thing lately, and I dunno I got home after a long day today and listened to a podcast and ate that, and I know it's cheesy but I guess it's true that sometime you've just gotta keep going for the small things.

<3

- Ella