Days of My Life

People frequently ask me what "Remy Sea" means. Following is the thought process I underwent as I contemplated a "pen name" for this blog forever ago. Just before freshman year of high school, I read This Lullaby  by Sarah Dessen, one of my favorite YA authors. The main character's name is Remy Starr, which I thought was poetic, because she was the star of the story (e.g. the protagonist). I greatly admired her determination, independence, and grit. She knows what she wants and she knows how to get it. She doesn't let herself get attached to any one person, and she certainly doesn't let any one person tell her what to do. She became my favorite fictional character because she was the (slightly rebellious) 18-year-old I wanted to become. I didn't (still don't) know how to swim. Hence, the vastness and unpredictability of the ocean used to (sometimes still does) frighten me deeply. But during sophomore year, I learned to reframe vastness as oppo...

Isn't it wondrous how easily people appear in our lives, and how much more easily some of the same people disappear from our lives? I've been thinking about this a great deal lately. Let's say you've just started dating someone new. One month in, you introduce him/her to your friends. They might think, "Oh, where did s/he come from?" but they wouldn't actually ask; rather, they accept that someone new has entered your life, and subsequently someone new is entering their lives. Months or years later, you separate, and your former SO is no longer S, just O. It's as though s/he has been erased from the pages of history, never to be mentioned or seen again amongst you and your friends. Alternatively, you're on a dating app. You match with somebody (yay!), you go through the obligatory initial conversation, you meet up, and you dig one another. With as little as a few hours of (virtual and face-to-face) conversation, you've let somebody new into...

I don't need to try to please everybody. As valiant and commendable of an effort as one can make, it is impossible to make everybody happy. While happiness can ensue via acts of service for others, I've come to realize that it also has to be actively pursued by asking myself what I want .  A good relationship with my parents is just as important as a good relationship with anybody else. In middle school, I began to "rebel", and in doing so, I of course often upset my parents, and began to communicate with them less and less about my daily goings-on. Meanwhile, I began to develop deep relationships with friends and later romantic relationships with boy(s). A part of me thought that it was a trade-off--either relationship with my parents or relationships with my friends. And I made a choice. But really, there was truly no reason it couldn't have been both.  Not every relationship (the general sense of the word, not just the romantic sense) needs to stay a relatio...