"i just want some COLOR"

originally created June 18, 2023 ✦ republished February 8, 2025

(Originally posted on Instagram. This retroactive post is copied from the Instagram post.)

FINALLY, A REAL DRAWING!!!!! Yesss, scribbling this was nice ☺️🖌️

For all of last week, I was in this odd funk. I was just watching YouTube videos, or doing college research, or doing planning for an upcoming trip, or working on a web thing for a group I'm in. But even though most of these are things that either are important or are something I really cared about, there was still this strong feeling like I was making myself do something I didn't want to do. Could it be because of deadlines?

College is important because education and job and adult and stuff; the trip is important because it's a once-in-a-lifetime chance to visit a foreign country in a group; the web project is important because I really want to make something good, and it's for something I really care about. But with all of them, it feels like it's an obligation, like I just gotta do it because it's super-productive or something.

But I have a whole summer break, don't I? The trip might be coming up soon, but aside from that, college apps don't need to be submitted until the middle of first semester of senior year at the earliest, and I don't even have any explicit pressure to do the website because there's no "due date". I can tell that I'm doing the same things constantly, day after day, but why am I making myself?

It seems like there's an imbalance in my life I need to sort out. I've been feeling headachy and heart-poundy all week last week, but now that it's getting better, I should take some action. I haven't been exercising regularly, so I need to get to that; I also need to do driving practice, play games with my parents more, see people more, do a day trip....

Maybe what it is is that I'm giving myself the idea that I've overbooked myself by doing more than I need to of some things and forgetting to leave room for myself, knowing what I want and how fast I want to go. I assumed that this meant "sitting quietly", which felt frustrating, but now that my head is clearing up, I think it's the right time to reconsider any misunderstandings I may have had that kept me feeling stuck and left me confused.