Why you need to be romanticizing your life

Liv Pierog

She/They

Columnist

4/18/23

Please if you’re reading this because you just clicked on an Instagram link or you decided you’re going to be an upstanding and participating member of the community and start reading the student newspaper regularly (you should be). Let me take your mind off the news for just a minute. You seem to have lost your rose-colored glasses recently, I’ve noticed. Maybe it’s time to start romanticizing your life again. 

I know you know how to do it! Just look around you, it’s spring outside, you made it through yet another Plymouth winter! So did the local family of Black Bears I saw bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on Bailey St.

So please watch out for them and do NOT attempt to pet the bears or ANY wild animal even if they seem like REALLY nice, cute, fluffy guys; in fact, it will NOT result in an unlikely friendship between a quirky college kid and a goofy bear sidekick. However, I love your enthusiasm, and I think we’re on the right track here… I am trying to get you to romanticize your life. 

To romanticize; deal with or describe in an idealized or unrealistic fashion; make (something) seem better or more appealing than it really is.
(ex.) “the tendency to romanticize nonindustrial societies”,

“the tendency to romanticize living in a post-capitalist socio-economic landsca-”…

…BECAUSE WHAT ELSE ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO?!?

Ultimately yes, we have no choice but to romanticize our lives, but really, it’s easier than you think, hear me out. You’re a product of your surroundings, it makes up who we are, we’re from up north so the cold makes up who we are. But so do the mountain summers. You’re a product of what you surround yourself with, the people you like, the things you like, the music you listen to. 

What’s your favorite album?… WHY though?

Maybe press play on it, if you’re reading this on a device that has your preferred streaming service in the next tab over or something. Or don’t, do what you want! 

That’s my point. That’s the point. That album of yours probably influenced who you are at one point or another, just like the art you make, enjoy, or support. Likewise, the clothes that you wear every day, your favorite movies, the posters you have up in your dorm room or apartment, the song in your head when you’re in your car. You are a unique product of what you love and enjoy, experiencing more of what you love and enjoy.

Getting warmer to those rose-colored glasses again, hold on, one more minute! I know attention is a tight currency right now,  just one more minute.

You might be thinking… Girl PLEASE! What do you even know about my situation? It is just beyond repair. I AM just beyond repair. Maybe so, but, you’re awake to see the light of day and you can read. You’re already winning in the first two preliminaries of this whole existence thing. Next, consider what feels beautiful in your life. This can include physical beauty, natural beauty, the things that you find beautiful that others might not; more of what makes you who you are. Consider the importance of one’s own hero’s journey.

Where have you been in your life? Was it beautiful there? 

Eventually, every silly little experience becomes a memory. If you can’t find your rose-colored glasses, I implore you to check down memory lane. It is so easy to romanticize one’s past, wishing to experience something for the first time all over again. It can be easy to pay so much attention to that feeling- that you end up doing it to yourself all over again by not fully soaking in and saturating yourself in every sunset over the wind turbines on Tenny Mtn., late-night parked car conversation with friends or precious Face Time with your loved ones. If only you could find a way to see things now, through the lens with which you will eventually look back on them…

 Doesn’t it feel like the weather has its own personality sometimes?

 With the coming warm weather, all of this should be becoming easier for us by the day. Whether you’re buying into my hopelessly romantic lifestyle or not, mental and physical health, as well as all-around cognitive function improves with exposure to sunlight and warm weather.

 I REPEAT: IT’S ABOUT TO GET A LITTLE EASIER.

Admire the four walls around you, your breath moving through your body, the sound of it all, the silence of it all. Isn’t it kind of beautiful? This moment, right now, is all you’ve got to experience, and I know you have no choice… but isn’t it kind of beautiful, really though? If you’re a musician you should go write a song about it, if you’re an artist you should go paint a moody painting of your water bottle in a window about it. Call up your friend or your mom and talk to them about it, ask them if it’s beautiful where they are, ask them if they could make it so if they wanted to. 

Or do nothing about it at all, but you’ve actually got to go experience it out there and stop reading articles and blog posts all day… Really it’s beautiful, try not to lose those rose-colored glasses again alright? One last thing, take Vitamin-D pills when it gets cold again because it always gets cold again up here. But now that the snow’s melted… now that I think about it… Wasn’t the cold kind of beautiful too? Doesn’t part of you miss it already?