pictochathearts

[pictochathearts]

Teddy Bears and Degrees

Tomorrow, I will wake up in the morning, and I will make the twelve minute trek to the outdated local mall and do what I do for forty hours every week of every month of every year. Make stuffed animals for kids, probably the highlight of their day. And I love that for them, I really do, but I am on year three now in that grimy mall. I see our bear mascot more than I see my girlfriend some weeks. Not exactly where I planned to be in my early twenties. 

Are we ever where we want to be in our early twenties? I wouldn’t know, I just got here. But I do know that teddy bears in a dying mall  just aren’t for me. I hold more and more of a grudge for my stuffed coworkers every day that I go into that place. Heartless, right? Beefing with an axolotl on roller skates? 

It used to be the light of my day, bringing joy to kids and adults like me that still have an attachment to our non-sentient friends. But since I graduated with my bachelor’s, it’s been a full 180. I was once a full time student on campus with a full time job in town, one of the only perks of which being that you get to boast about doing so. There is something so validating about earning your way while consistently progressing in life, but with graduation, it halted. 

Now with a media degree in hand and a couple of tanked interviews, I can’t help but feel as though this is who I am. I work at a mall for too little pay, and I come home to a shabby little house where the rent is far too high. It’s not a bad life, sure. Some would certainly be beyond grateful for it. I am, but I want more. When will it end? A degree doesn’t get better with age, that’s for sure. Will I become content? Will I fall deep into the stuffing until it suffocates me? Will my little parchment keep collecting dust? 

I guess that my point is, I am confused, lost, and want to officially say “fuck you” to my twenties so far. 

[pictochathearts]

Welcome Back, Kid

Doomscrolling. I’ve used it casually in conversation lately as I would any new lingo. Most people my age that I have surrounded myself with tend to do the same, if I do say so. Our Instagram comments have gone from “Queeeen” to “Slaayy” as the casual compliment, swag has become drip, and why send a laughing emoji when a skull one will clearly do the trick? But when I think about doomscrolling, I think about what I’ve done since I was about ten years old with my hour of computer time. Scrolling endless Facebook posts turned into endless Tumblr posts turned into endless Instagram posts turned into endless TikTok posts. Wow, it’s a beautiful world. Why is it doomed now?

In my middle school days, endless fandom posts were far from doomful, dreadful, or what the fuck ever we’re saying now. They were a second home, most of my friend circle was a digital one. I loved it. I loved creating art, stories, and new experiences with people who liked the exact same thing I did. I loved coming home after school to an inbox flooded with likes, comments, reposts. Way more than any post purely about myself would get, I just knew it. 

But I still strayed from it. 

In high school, it all just fizzled out. No more juice for my fandoms, my online friends, any connections I had made. Blegh. My Instagram went from three memes a day (and now you can post more than one picture at a time! 12 year old me would’ve been up DAY AND NIGHT pumping out that many memes) to an occasional overthought, over edited picture of myself. There is absolutely nothing wrong with posting yourself and loving it, but for me it has always felt like a bit of an act of imitation. I would habitually check everyone’s accounts to compare how often we were posting, what filters we were using, how many people we could follow back, and, of course, whoever was doing “the best.” I wanted as many likes as the pretty, popular girls. Sue me. This is where my doom began, if you couldn’t gather. 

Tonight, I am rotting in bed (God, it’s just all negative now, huh?) and scrolling through a freshly picked Tumblr feed with Cheetos and chocolates garnered at my side. And you know what? There really is a serenity to zoning out and going full fucking nerd with a bunch of people on the internet. It is a bliss that I have not had since middle school, and so it goes on. This, here, I don’t think that this will ever be my doom.

[pictochathearts]

this blog hates donald trump