The Blue or The Purple?

I ask myself variations of this questions everyday.
Stripes or spots? Plaits or a ponytail? Art History Paper or “Mad Men”? Dress or Pants? Fluevogs or Doc? (lets be honest it will be always be Fluevogs)

Every minute you are faced with a decision of some sort whether it is getting out of bed in the morning, or quitting school and your job to pursue a wild adventure. Big, small, diagonal and sideways each decision as significant as the one preceding it, causing a constant progression from choice to choice to choice, until suddenly you are married, have 2 kids, a dog, a 3 storey house and vacation pad in the Hampton’s.

I am facing a big choice in my life right now, one that is appearing hard to articulate and reveal, however, the metaphor of the Blue and Purple Hats is calling to me.

The Blue Hat. It is the hat you wear all the time. It goes with the spots on your bag, the stripes on your socks, your favourite yellow dress, and fits your head like a glove. A very special person gave you this hat, and it hangs on your bed knob, where you can see it all the time. Wearing this hat is very natural, something that just sits in the mix, a part of you. When you wear it, you instantly feel like a cool cucumber, because you are. You know whats important to you, and feel inspired just by looking at yourself in the mirror. The hat is yours, represents you and all the things that make you a cool cucumber.

The Purple Hat. This is a hat in the shop window, perched on the head of a mannequin dressed in a Elie Saab periwinkle gown and a pair of Jimmy Choo’s. This is the hat of possibility. It is a very specific shade of purple that might not look good with your favourite yellow dress. It is the kind of hat that you might have to buy a new bag for, but is that such a bad thing? This is the hat that few would dare to wear. Will it fit? Who knows. It is the risk that’s the exciting part. Maybe you won’t be a cool cucumber any more, maybe you will be a aggressive apple. Or an ominous orange. It could change you, it could not. Its just a hat after all. Or it is something more?

I feel paralyzed by choice. Choosing one may make me happy, keep me comfortable but where is the excitement in that? Choosing the other is daring, sexy, attractive, but what if it all falls through and I have nothing but a stupid old hat?

As we grow with the people we love, we realize that there a points, where we either turn around or keep on. I want to keep on, I know that for sure, but sporting what hat? It might make all the difference.

First things first. Listen to this song whilst reading this. And then watch the music video after, its the best.

Now, Lets us begin with the idea of a thread.

Seems simple in essence, a small material that is used to hold pieces of fabrics together in a unified fashion, that then creates a larger whole/entity.

Threads create the seams that keeps the clothes on our bodies, keeps the patches in a quilt together, holds the sleeves to our jackets and the pockets to our pants. It holds together crucial bits and pieces, that create a larger item.

Threads with a capitol “T” may not have any more meaning than the definition I proposed above. And if so, I accept that, I will not lose sleep over it, since that is life and not all people like the words you like. However, Threads with a capitol “T” represents, to me, life.

Life is series of Threads. Imagine every human being has a thread connected to their shoes, their ear, their index, or the tip of their nose, the place that is attached to on the human anatomy is rather irrelevant. However, every person walks, moves, eats, sleeps, and crosses paths with other humans if it is on the bus, going to work, or even sleep walking.

That act of crossing another persons path means in theory, your little thread of green, purple or blue, intersecting with another. And another, and another. And soon you, the lady with the pink hat with the flower on the bus today, the handsome chap with the satchel bag at the coffee shop and the little toddler with the Osh Kosh dungarees, have started to weave together your Threads, the beginnings of a larger master piece to come.

You may be the first Thread to cross anothers, or the last to complete their colourful quilted masterpiece they call their life, however, you are now part of larger entity without even knowing your fellow artist.

What a strange metaphor. Even literally spelling it out, I find myself wrestling with the idea of a Thread with a capitol “T”.

However, to put it more tangibly, life consists of us constantly bumping into things. Whether it is people, ideas or lampost, these things shape our experience, and create a beautiful story of our lives. Much like the crossing of many different, ever so different, individual Threads.

Mad Love,

Ella

Tick-tick-tick-tick.

18 years, 10 months, 6,902 days, 165,670 hours, 9,940, 251 minutes, and  596, 498, 838 seconds.

Since October 22nd, this is how many years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds have passed. Appears to be a long time.

The other day I had this thought about all the time I have.

Or about how much time I don’t have. Whichever way you choose to look at it.

I felt like I was a little box closed in by the walls of time, holding a secure control over all of your actions and movements.

I had to get my watch fixed. Quite nice not to hear it ticking, a constant reminder of the seconds, minutes and hours that are flying by, some of which are unused.

But what is wrong with usused time, time spent doing nothing?

Nothing is wrong with nothing. Yet we make it seem as if it is a waste. Hm.

I have decided to switch my Major from English and Creative Writing to Art History and Creative Writing. The thought that ran into me was the amount of time I had left, and if switching would be a waste of time.

Hold up. I just told myself that I should maybe not consider my passions, my strengths and my dreams, if they take up too much time?

That is going to be a horrendous life.

4 years you must be finished your bachelor everyone, echoes the nightmares of Health and Career classes past.

I call bologna. I am going to take my time, enjoy my time, and live continiously with the time that I am given and take as much as I need. I have realized that this rush, pressure, and finish line we have to cross at a certain TIME, should not and does not exist.

Always remember folks, 5 years > is the new four.

Take your time.

Mad Love,

Ella

http://www.howlonghaveibeenalivefor.com/

Lets start from the very beginning. A very good place to start.

Today was a beginning for most but not for me. Going into my second year, I was a wise guide to the new guppies that are entering the big sea of UBC. I promised that I didn’t bite.

What a strange nostalgia, I felt today, as if I had suddenly grown up and I was no longer allowed to feel nervous, anxious and excited for school anymore. I had to be a grown up today and know everything. Which I don’t.

As we walked around campus today, I gave the best advice I could to the newcomers whose eyes were keen and wondering, and whose brains were hungry for answers. It was honest and true, personal and experience-based. But I wondered all day, what makes me the expert?

We arrived at the pep rally, faced with a stadium filled with 8,000 students new to UBC. I remember it exactly as if it were a year ago. Actually, it was. I remember feeling nervous, scared, excited, confused, happy, sad, inspired and everything that is in between. And today, I don’t know if I felt that much different.

My first year was a year of growing, one of which I learned an abundance of things about myself and about the life I may want to live. As an Orientations leader today, I was a leader and guide, as a second year student. But I realize that I was not an expert, nor was I expected to be. Because we are all growing up, every day of our lives. Is there even such a thing as all grown up? Every experience will be new in some way or another, with another perspective that just kaleidoscopes our lives a little more. After sending off my little birds to fly to the Main Event today, I felt a little bit older and experienced I suppose. But I was treading in the little foot steps of my first year self as I made my way to 99 bus stop, which made me smile.