new year, new me~

I actually really hate that saying. I, like many other people in the world, believe that change and the New Year shouldn't be mutually exclusive. However, it seems like a greater population of people do share that belief, as it's now obvious to me that the US (and other places, I'm sure) have made a market out of New Year's resolutions. I could insert some cynical, jaded line about how everything is being made into a market, but it's almost midnight and I'm feeling airy for once, so forgive me, my cynicism is down at the moment.

I guess, in a way, I do have a resolution or two. Firstly, I'd like to be more forgiving of myself this year. I spent far too much time in 2014 being hyper critical of myself for all the wrong reasons, and as someone who has an anxiety disorder, sometimes I'm not sure if it just comes with the territory or if I'm too hard on myself. Either way, I have to start letting small things go and allowing myself to breathe, even when I make mistakes. As much as I try to pretend I'm a well-dressed robot with no emotional spectrum, the truth is, I am a human. A human with emotions and feelings that sometimes get hurt, mostly by my own thoughts because LOL I'm my own worst enemy. Hopefully, I'll back off on myself in 2015. At least just a little.

Secondly, as vain as it is, I'd like to wear more lipstick. This whole blog was inspired by orange lipstick and my love for it, because I've found that orange is a great color for me (but only on my lips). For an 18 year old college kid, I have a massive lipstick collection. Like, massive. I'm talking more than a dozen tubes, most of which are barely used. They sit in their drawer, saddened by the fact that most of them never see the light of day more than twice a year. Usually, I have the same 3 lipsticks in rotation because I'm too lazy in the morning to manage more than mascara and a little under-eye concealer. And now that I'm in college and like to sleep until the very last second (another thing that must change going into spring semester), my use of lipstick has dwindled even more.

Part of me thinks that my use of lipstick, or lack thereof, had something to do with my confidence level or my hope to fit in. When I went away to college this fall, I told myself that I would stick to guns and make friends with people who share the same interests as me. And while I did make friends with people who are super cool and I would definitely see myself in five years with getting drinks, I realized, as I was moving in, I hardly brought anything that screamed "HERE I AM WORLD I AM MATTEA HEAR ME ROAR". Everything was pretty plain. Sure, my giant Ramones poster kind of stuck out at first, but then it fell off the wall and I never did hang it back up. (Note to self: hang it back up, you lazy shit. It's not that hard.) I didn't bring my records (which is going to change when I go back), I didn't bring many momentos besides books, and I had very little with me that expressed my identity and self besides clothes and music on my iPod. Visually, my dorm started out very lackluster and non-expressive (which has since then changed as I became more comfortable at school and with my surroundings and people). But, I didn't try to be 'too' out of the box. I still dressed the way I liked to, but it wasn't anything daring, like I used to pull in high school. I'm definitely going to have to break out my bright red kilt next semester.

I also found myself playing it safe, especially with makeup and clothes. I was never like that in my last two years of high school; I wore what I wanted and did what I wanted because that's who I was and I couldn't give less of a fuck who opposed. I even dashed away to Canada for my 17th birthday so I could get a tattoo done because I'm a ~rebel~ (not), and spent the next two weeks giving the finger to everyone who questioned me. I guess my mom has always harbored that mentality in me, in the smallest ways, and I love her for it. If I come home with a half sleeve, I'm sure she'll protest and ask "What about a job, Mattea? What then?!", but until then, I'm sure anything I do is passable. Except a tongue piercing. That'll always be a no-bueno in my mom's book.

But in college, I guess I subconsciously wanted to fit in and make friends with everyone because this was my chance. Growing up in a small town, you make your friend groups early and infiltrating them after a set date (usually the start of high school) is hard. Not impossible, but it's pretty tricky. So, being new at college, I wanted to be 'cool' and have lots of 'cool' college friends. But now that my first semester is done with, I've realized something; literally no one cares if you're conventionally 'cool' or not. Conventionally 'cool' isn't even a thing past high school. There is no strict definition anymore.

I repeat: NO ONE CARES IF YOU'RE WEIRD. So now that I've realized that I can be weird and expressive and break out in song and dance with my equally as weird friends who like to stay up late and listen to 60's music while we contemplate the meaning of life, I've decided that lipstick must enter my life in full force once again. I brought quite a few of my lipsticks to school with me, but have managed to get very little use out of them. I've also just realized that I went on a long tangent about lipstick and self-confidence and identity and I'm unsure of how we got here, but I like it. Also, my cats are yowling at each other and it baffles me how cats can be so unaware of time. They literally don't care. They'll yowl and play at 3 a.m, they don't care. I sometimes wish cats knew about bed times and common courtesy.

Lastly, I'd like to blog more. This is probably going to be the hardest resolution to keep up with, because I'm horrible, lazy, POS blogger who tries to convince herself she 'doesn't have time' and 'can't keep up with a blog' but in all reality, I'm just a procrastinator who needs to schedule her time better. (Yet another thing that must change.) I'm not going to promise this blog will be updated, but with the amount of things running around my head as of late, I'm sure it'll be updated enough. I hope. Maybe I'll say a little prayer for myself. That'll probably do it. (Who am I kidding? Not even Jesus himself could perform the miracle that is instilling motivation in me.)

Now that I've spent an ample amount of time writing this blog post and rambling on about fucking lipstick, it's time for me to go back to the reality of training a kitten not to be a pain in the ass 24 hours a day. She's cute and all (maybe pictures to come?) but nose biting at 6 a.m is not. Wish me luck. I'm going to need it. I also need to go to bed because I have responsibilities that need to be tended to tomorrow. ZOMG adulthood~~ so much fun.