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Tuesday
25Aug2009
Looking back, leaving, & letting go.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009 at 1:11AM 
Before I leave, I've been packing up my life into tiny tiny boxes. Every year I store away stacks of my school files into boxes that grow dusty in my storage room taking up space, since I'm definitely a hoard rat. But since I'm leaving, I've been taking them out, going through them, and then throwing them away. It's a very liberating and clean feeling.
And I don't know why I thought Future Yvonen would ever need her 9th grade packet of geometry notes again. Or fifty thousand outdated articles from sophomore history...or club flyers from 2005...Yeah, this was definitely a good idea.
I found a bunch of photos that I took for photo class my freshman year. None of them are very good, but I think I thought I was decent way back then. I like seeing them together because while separately they are pretty craptacular, when they are all tiled together it doesn't matter. They don't need to be very good because the focus of the picture is no longer on any individual photo. It's on the combined tones and gradients of all the little pieces together.
I know this seems a bit like a metaphor that's just trying too hard, but I can't help feeling like this is what my high school career was like: it's all these separate pictures come together into one huge glob that I can only see now, after the fact. Some of it sucked, some of it was amazing, but when I think of it I see it all made up as one experience. And I enjoyed it. Frustrations and all, I like how I feel when I look back on these last four years.
Which is not to say that I never look down to the details. The details are what make or break you at the end of the day, the memories that you cherish or shudder at and should never, ever lose. The details are the ones that make me scared to leave at the end of the day, because I'm so scared of losing them. I've loved so many people, places, and experiences so much that I'm scared of moving on. I'm still young (12 years old, according to my friends -_-), I'm still dumb. I'm still worried. I want to stay home with my family and crash at Frankie's and run around CWB and take the 260 bus from Central all the way to Stanley!
Oh, and I couldn't bring myself to throw those photos away. Too many memories of squinting inside a darkroom, with the squeaky-oily feeling of developer on my fingers and long soapy strips of film...instead, they're now freshly labeled and filed into a much smaller box. One day in the future, I'll come back and be completely ready to let them go.
love you all, keep in touch! i'll be leaving HK on August 31st and will be back in January. if you're feeling up to it, you could send me some real mail cause i love that stuff: hit up mistress [a] eye-fight.net for my address. :) much love -
But then I zoom back out and I'm excited for college again, because I know that the moment I hit campus, I'll love it. I'm ready to move on, I love meeting new people, and it's time for me to leave. I've been ready for this for a long time and although the closer I get to the departure date, the more unsure I feel...I know this is what I want. Moving on, next stage. I just need to keep reminding myself of what all these memories are starting to suppress, because before I've actually gotten there...it's hard. But I know I'm going to have a lot of fucking fun!
It's not the end of anything, but it's the start of something that I've grown into. I'll miss y'all beyond words and that is something that is incredibly difficult to leave behind, but I've exhausted all my crappy metaphors and photos here for now. Time for something completely different. :)
It's not the end of anything, but it's the start of something that I've grown into. I'll miss y'all beyond words and that is something that is incredibly difficult to leave behind, but I've exhausted all my crappy metaphors and photos here for now. Time for something completely different. :)
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love you all, keep in touch! i'll be leaving HK on August 31st and will be back in January. if you're feeling up to it, you could send me some real mail cause i love that stuff: hit up mistress [a] eye-fight.net for my address. :) much love -
tagged +College, +High School, back in the day, college, hkis, reflection
+College, +High School, back in the day, college, hkis, reflection 
Reader Comments (3)
I really liked this post. What you said about memories - "it's all these separate pictures come together into one huge glob that I can only see now, after the fact" - describes my feelings about college as well.
And of course, grad school. Part of me wishes I could stay in CTY forever, part of me wishes for college over again. But here I am, reading papers for the past two hours.
Good luck in college; I have no doubt that you enjoy it.
Why do all your posts make me think so hard, must be some connection. Ahem, blur connection.
YVONEN! You shouldn't throw those photos away, yeah throw away all those old notes they're useless for you now, but PHOTOS, never ever do that.
i agree, don't throw away the photos, even if you do scan them all. i love how they're all in black and white!