Sam Reviews "Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded" by Hannah Hart

Buffering was everything I wanted it to be and more. I find Hannah Hart to be one of the most selfless and inspiring pop culture figures today. Starting off by utilizing her publicity tour as a way to encourage people to volunteer their time at food banks, to now getting the nitty gritty details of the struggles she has overcome, I don't know how someone could not appreciate her light. I'm not typically one to favor non-fiction books, but I managed to swallow this one whole in three days. I'll be honest, there were section in the book I felt were a little jumbled and I did have to go back and reread in order to regain my footing in the story, but overall this was a lovely memoir and I'm so glad Hannah opened herself up to her fans (and hopefully to other people as well).

As much as I want everyone to read this book for themselves, I also can't keep from sharing these wonderful, beautiful snippets from her story.

"Selfishly, I wanted to write this to feel less alone.  Selflessly, I hope it helps you feel less alone too."

"Regarding the appearance of the house alone,  the level of filth,  one would think that five people were living here,  but the feeling of stillness,  the dust,  the stagnance of inactivity were inescapable markers of the truth."

"I feel guilty,  like I'm blowing up a museum.  It's no wonder Mom can't throw these things away.   Of course she can't.  It feels like disposing of a body or packing up after a funeral.  Aside from the damp breaths of mold or the soft smell of rot associated with the clothes,  there are a thousand memories attached to each item. ... At a time when we had so little these clothes gave us so much.  Until now. Until this moment when I throw it all into this big black bag.   The reward for their tenure."

"... maybe she's been saving all this stuff for so long because she was waiting for her life to start back up again.  Is that hope?"

"Sometimes we have to start over and make new heirlooms for our children to eventually put into their own boxes or bags as they see fit. "

"'Am I ever going to get a real job? I work part time,  dude.  At a coffee shop.  Is this going to be my life forever?'
"'There's no such thing as forever,  man!  It's just right now.  And right now you work at a coffee shop and you're learning how to be an awesome barista.  We love coffee shops!  That's cool!'

"'I think I have to realize that being 27 and not having done my thing yet is not the catastrophe it seems to be.'"

"Depression is a wordless whisperer telling you that this feeling is the true feeling and that every other feeling you've ever had was only temporary.  This is your lasting reality.  Those memories you called happiness or peace were just distractions,  but this is you at your most real.  Don't bother to fight against it,  because you're always fighting against it,  and since you're fighting against your own nature,  you'll never fully win."

"Sometimes I have to remind myself that I am real."

"... healthy relationships weren't born out of the desperation to avoid a feeling of loneliness.  ...  Loneliness can come with you into even the most crowded of rooms."

"... dealing with depression isn't about trying to run away from the feeling; it's about learning to walk alongside it."

"I felt young and inexperienced but also free and reckless."

"'The only real danger is the comedown [from ecstacy]'

"'How will I know when I'm coming down?'
"'When all the judgement starts to seep back in.'"

"This girl, who had been a stranger an hour before, was now someone I knew I could trust.  We all trust until we're taught otherwise."

"Was I myself only when I was with other people?  Could I be myself alone?  Did I have a self alone?"

"Walk until you see a new perspective. You may not see a way out, but you can always change your perspective."

"You know what another word for fear is?  Intelligence."

"Achieving inner peace is real.  It's out there.  You just have to be willing to walk past the darkness, and even past the light, to find it."

"If you're the type of person who is logging internal complaints 99 percent of the time, it's not actually about the outside circumstances, it's about your internal head space.  Think about it...what are the odds that you're actually constantly surrounded by idiots? ... If you're someone who likes to complain and be negative, ain't nothing gonna change that but you."

"First anger, then guilt, then isolation.  That was the only pattern I knew."

"'Is it always this bad?'
"'Not always. But sometimes. Just like everything else.'"

"There are no bad guys in this story.  Things are always more complicated than one person who was wrong or one person who was selfish.  ...  Sometimes it's easier to decide that someone is the bad guy.  But the truth is never that simple."

"She said that handsome men don't stay handsome for long.  Or maybe she just said they don't stay long.  Both turned out to be true."

"You're a good person.  You're the best of any of us.  You'll take care of so many things."

"'I'm not your dad.  We're friends. We're family. But I'm not your dad.  Your dad is a good man.  He's just not here.'
"'Yeah, but you're here.'"

"What's the point of keeping a fragment of something that was already gone?"

"This is a message for those of you who contemplate permanent solutions to temporary problems [suicide].  You never know what could be coming in the future.  There is so much music you've yet to hear."

"We'll grow old together and laugh while we watch each other fall apart.  I love you."

"For his sake, I'm glad he disappeared.  I don't blame him.  I know it was an act of self-preservation."

"If you ask me about "the first time I thought I might be gay" ... I could say it was any time I was near another girl at all and she smelled so clean and nice and I wanted to be her favorite thing in the world.  ...   The truth is that I think it was in every moment."

"Denial is both active and passive."

"I'm glad we were on the same page. But I think that was the last time that we ever were."

"I wasn't gay when people asked me who I was dating because she and I weren't dating:  we were in love.  Good thing that she wasn't gay either. She was just experimenting and that's what she told everyone. Which is why she was comfortable talking about it. But I couldn't talk about it with my family because I knew we weren't an experiment. We'd get married (as two straight women) and then and only then would I tell my family. I didn't need to say the word "gay" because this wasn't long term. I wasn't gay at all, I was simply hers."

"The kind of conflict that's quiet - the quiet of two people who know that something is about to go terribly wrong. The quiet before an earthquake. Except who knew if the earthquake was going to bring forth a volcano and who knew if that volcano would destroy everything we had built."

"I was formed in response to her,  as she was formed in response to me. We were each other's parent and each other's child."