Tears & a book hangover, thx

Today has been an emotional rollercoaster, you guys.

This morning I woke up early & decided to finally finish reading my current book: A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik. (I'll make a separate post about the book later). I'd been putting it off for a while because I didn't have another book lined up to read & I can't deal with change.

Finishing a book that has a main character that I related to so much almost physically hurt. I found that El, the mc, embraced the parts of myself that I typically shy away from & she was always authentic to herself. (Something that I am trying to reintroduce into my life) She simply did not care about titles, money, social status, any of that because she knew that none of it really mattered. The book was powerful, stimulating, appealed to some of my favorite troupes, & was decently balanced. Well, except for the romance portion.

The last few pages of the book hit me really hard, because I had not realized just how much I loved everything the novel incorporated. It felt as though a dream was ending & there was no way to postpone it, not even if I simply just stopped reading. But, that's the thing, I couldn't stop reading. I didn't want to. El deserved a happy ending, Orion needed to understand that he is more than just a machine, & all their mix-matched friends were working so hard & deserved to live. It certainly is/was a deadly education.

Long story short, after the last page (which left me puzzled, conflicted, & flustered all in one) all I could do was sit. I didn't want to move because moving would meaning moving on from the book. Pondering the possibilities of what the last few pages meant, what kind of character development was planned for the future, what other events can take place to make this place any worse than it is, what is El going to name her mouse. Instead, I turned to google &, THANKFULLY there is a second book coming June 2021. The Last Graduate.

Which is funny, because I will be a graduate at the time of the book release.

After reading for an hour & a half, it was time to make some sort of breakfast. Though I wasn't particularly hungry, because I now have a book hangover, I still ate a protein bar & made an ice coffee. Yes, yes, I realize you don't want to hear about my ice coffee. Deal with it. I'm no sorry.

A few days ago I went grocery shopping & decided to finally clean & cut the vegetables that I had bought. Pre-cutting & storing them in mason jars in the fridge helps with making meals (& they last longer) because the difficult part is already done. While setting up I decided to, instead of listening to my podcast (I'll talk about this in another post) I'd finally watched a special YouTube video.

If you like the Sims 4 & watching Youtube, then we would probably be decent friends, since I do as well. For the last 2 years I've been watching Kelsey Impicciche complete the 100 Baby challenge via Buzzfeed Multiplayer & today was the final episode. & it was fucking good. Kelsey is such an amazing narrator for her episode & the effort that she puts into each of her episode, every single one of them, is always maximum. (If you get the joke, let me know) From naming the kids, to remembering the birth certificates, the baby daddy's, & just all of it was flawlessly done.

& to the ppl who are complaining about the way it ended: simply shut your mouth.

I doubt Kelsey Impicciche would ever read this blog post but, girl you did it. 100 babies. You did that all by yourself, not counting the few baby daddy's that hung around to help. Throughout those video's it was exciting to see you become more & more confident, owning yourself in front of the camera. Seeing you grow into a successful independent creator was fun & I'm stoked to see where you take your channel from here. I'll be there btw, watching & rooting for you!

Yes, I did cry btw. Twice during the final episode video & once during her video discussing why she is leaving Buzzfeed. I'd like to talk about something that she mentioned in her second video, if you guys don't mind:

Kelsey mentions that she felt that she was successful with her career at Buzzfeed mainly because of everything Buzzfeed provided her with. The technology, the people, the atmosphere, & that she didn't take time to stop & wonder if she was successful because of herself. Her own talents & hard work, hearing her say that stroke a chord in me.

Wrapping my head around the fact that Kelsey Impicciche of the 100 Baby Challenge didn't know she was brilliantly talented & an overall great YouTuber? She thought all these ppl watched her because of Buzzfeed? & then I realized, everything she said I related to.

Hold on, I am not saying I'm a brilliant independent creator or talented of anything like that. But, maybe I should, as well as an unfathomable amount of ppl, should take a step back & look at our own situations like she had done. Kelsey had realized that ppl were watching, not because of Buzzfeed, but because of her & that she didn't need all the shiney, fancy equipment from Buzzfeed (since she's been working from home for... over a year now?) She had realized her self worth as a creator.

So, why can't we all realize our own talents & own up to them? It couldn't hurt to be nice to yourself every once in a while, afterall, if you aren't a fan of yourself then who is going to be? I'll start, I'm a good writer. There is room for improvement but when is there not, ya know? But I get up every day & fight to achieve my dream of publishing my own work. My own book series that I can sell in my own book shop that I've worked hard for. It may not be the same thing as being a creator but it's just as ambitious.

I'm going to do it too, just like you are going to do whatever you strive to do. Whatever you put your mind too. You & me & everyone else on this floating rock in space are going to achieve our goals, our dreams, & there is nothing impossible standing in our way.

Today has been emotional & I'm tempted to not even post this, emotion is not a strong suit of mine & being so openly vulnerable is weirding me out. But this is important, this is good, to express these thoughts even if no one is reading this. Who cares.

That's the whole point of this blog anyways, to push myself to live a life where I'm no longer afraid to fail.

Arrivederci,

Haunted Lore