aspiringorwhatever

[aspiringorwhatever]

[aspiringorwhatever]

I haven’t known what I wanted to write here for awhile, but I’m realizing it’s just not that deep. Maybe to me it is, but to everyone scrolling it’s just another drop in the bucket. What am I so afraid of?

Everything, all the time, apparently.

I am caught in the middle of who I am and who I (and most people around me) think I am. What I want feels miles away from the destination that everyone expects of me as I round the corner to 30 years old.

The destination is as follows: a marriage to someone who kind of understand you (if you’re lucky), kids that overwhelm you 99% of the time, a house under constant construction, an unfulfilling career that you use wine and weekends to cope with, and a sense of self that is expected to merge with the world around you into “oneness.” The thought makes me want to crawl out of my skin.

I don’t even know what I want or who I want to be. Half of me is still learning how to mother myself and the other is healing the scars from my mother trying to do the same, still learning herself.

My parents, and those of all of my generation, did the best they could (for the most part). Therapy wasn’t a thing to them. Not being okay but acting like you were was the only thing that was accepted. Isn’t that the name of the game, to be accepted?

Shush!! Quiet. Don’t make a scene or draw attention to yourself.

Aren’t those pants a little loud? Everyone is going to look at you.

That haircut is going to have everyone talking, alright.

It felt like a mortal sin to do anything that wasn’t what every one of your friends and family would do in the same situation. Sometimes it still does.

We have come further as a society in the last two years than the last two decades; a pandemic really helps put things in perspective, I guess. We have started to look around and realize that, truly, none of it matters and all of it matters at the exact same time. I have, at least.

I guess I could rephrase that to say this: the shit we thought that mattered to us has turned into garbage, and the things we should’ve understood mattered the most have made their star entrance into our realities.

I don’t care if someone has purple hair and loud pants, or if they laugh a little too loudly at the store. Does it make them happy? That’s what matters. That’s what I care about. For myself and everyone around me. I don’t want to steal someone’s joy because I have none of my own.

It feels lonely to think this way at this moment in time. I want so badly to shake friends and family that focus solely on gossip and superficial bullshit while ignoring that the person they’re putting down is trying their best too. Maybe dying their hair purple gave them a reason to wake up in the morning, or the bad choice they made is the only choice they thought they could make. We are generations repeating cycles, and in turn, mistakes.

We are all the culmination of our ancestors mistakes. They get passed down through generations as a challenge. Can you be the one to make a different decision? That’s the question they pose as they hand you the same problems that your mother and father dealt with, your grandmother and grandfather before them. They may be wrapped up in shiny new paper with a new bow but I promise it’s the same beaten up toy truck that’s begging to not get slammed into a wall. It’s your choice whether you recklessly roll it or not.

I do not want to be the one to make the same mistakes, to roll the truck into the wall because that’s how it’s always been done. I want to honor the truck and all of its parts, it’s imperfection from years of being abused by default. I want to break the cycle of can’t teach an old dog new tricks and pose the question of why not? Says who? Where is the rule written that things cannot change and adapt as necessary?

Maybe I don’t want to be a mom, or to have the marriage and house and white picket fence. Maybe I just want to be seen for who I am and loved all the same, broken parts included. To be a mother, one day, if I decide that’s what I want. For it to be my choice, not the choice of the whispers trying to drown out my own voice.

I don’t want to conform to a reality that was put in place generations ago that valued what you had more than who you are. A reality that you are only worth what you can contribute to society, to capitalism and old grossly rich white men who wouldn’t touch you without hand sanitizer close by.

I’m tired of it all. I want to be my authentic self and not feel like a leper because of it. To be in nature and write words that create feelings and to feel at home in my body without cursing it for how it looks. I want others to understand that each person is their own universe, vast and magnificent and full of autonomy and no one can change that. It does not matter what venom they spew or judgement they pass. I hope one day that becomes more possible. It only takes one voice to speak up and inspire change, imagine what could happen if an entire generation decides to break the wheel.

I hope to get to see it for myself.

[aspiringorwhatever]

Hellllllo there, fancy (imaginary) friends!

I’ve been trying to think of some sort of structure on what to write here, or why I should even bother, but I’m trying to accept the freedom that just writing anything to shout into the void is better than nothing. Everyone is trapped with their thoughts but only the brave ones decide to let them out to play with others.

I think we’re all so afraid that we are the worst of the worst and will only find out when we let other people know what’s going on in our own minds. In our lives.

What do you mean I’m the laziest person in the world because I spent a day on the couch after waking up at 1 PM? Other people don’t do that?

Successful people wake up with the sun and have run 5 miles by 8 AM. They eat a full breakfast and are always happy.

I’m trying, I really am. But that’s all bullshit.

I will never be a person who gets up at 5:30 AM to meet the sun as it arrives but I will be successful.

I may be pretty lazy sometimes but I will find the people who don’t decide that’s the one thing that defines a person.

Every day is a new day with new shit that I’ll fail at, like eating breakfast or doing an ab work out. I can go outside and exercise for 21 days straight when the habit is supposed to stick and decide to derail it all on day 22. Stay inside for weeks, hibernate when the sun is still closest to me. I can pick it back up whenever I want to because it doesn’t matter what everyone tells you on every side of the internet.

You are not me and I am not you and I am barely me. I am nuance incarnate and so are you and it is so much more beautiful than statistics and blending in. I’m so tired of the consumption but I can’t stop it, and that’s part of it all.

Shit can end tomorrow. For some of us, it will. Being unhappy and thinking that you’re always in a competition isn’t really what living is for. Living is for looking around you as you laugh and hold hands with your loved ones and watch a baby discover light up shoes and just stop to really look at it all. Breath it in and enjoy it. Be lazy, eat the ice cream. The only thing that’s worth it are the things you miss most when it’s all said and done.

I just want us all to start seeing the beauty in this existence because it is temporary. Learn how to make the most of it while you can and watch how you blossom into really living.

Keep sharing, I guess. Scream into the void and let it scream back.

[aspiringorwhatever]

I made a bouquet that gives me joy! Okay bye!

[aspiringorwhatever]

“When you don’t know who you are, you fuck around and find out.”

My favorite line. I remember feeling the joy of connecting to the words the first time I heard it. I listen to music constantly, learning all of the melodies and lyrics so I can sing along and try to feel how the artist felt when they wrote it. I understood how these ladies felt without having to replay it over and over (even though I did).

I gave up the life I had built for myself. I had the job that I worked hard for. I had to decide between it or myself, because in my world there could only be one.

“Your ambition isn’t going anywhere,” my manager had said as I told them I was considering leaving “that drive tends to stay.”

What you don’t realize when you lose someone is how much everything you thought would always be there just can suddenly not.

Poof. Gone is their existence. My drive went out the window when I realized that my dad died with the same drive and same calloused feet. Cancer took him in the end, but the 12 hour days didn’t exactly help keep it away from him.

So I left. To do what? I guess… to fuck around and find out? I don’t have a good answer for that today. I probably won’t tomorrow either. All that I know is that I’m going to listen to music and feel things for now. With my best pals boygenius.

[aspiringorwhatever]

I just want to frolic and be a fairy here okay????

x - x / x - x / x - x 🍃

[aspiringorwhatever]

㋡🥀

[aspiringorwhatever]

@Childish-like

[aspiringorwhatever]

I’ve been feeling a lot of shame lately when I look back on my life and my actions. I’ve been a selfish person for a good majority of my relatively short life. I used to think that I wasn’t, but taking a hard look means facing hard truths. It’s always been all about me. My sister would probably agree with you… her therapist too. The world was mine to take and taste. I used to give leftovers to the people around me, the people I loved. You can have this bite of attention, or this morsel of understanding. My problems and my life are the only thing that I can see. That I could see. I’m glad that I have learned how to expand my vision but it was not easy and it is not for the faint of heart. What I had to lose to gain even the smallest bit of insight wasn’t “worth it,” but it was necessary.

I would’ve never reflected back on my imperfections if I didn’t have to face my mortality. That’s what happens when you lose a parent, or friend, or just someone who touched your heart at one point or another. It could’ve been a hard hit, I didn’t specify “touch” as only good, but contact is all it takes. When they go you realize that you could go too. At any minute. What sprouts from that can be breathtakingly beautiful.

I realized that every minute I was spending judging myself for being young and dumb was another moment I was wasting. Rehashing it and feeling like I should’ve done something differently keeps the wound wide open. I can’t go back and change anything. I can, however, forgive myself and remember that version of me was doing the best she could for herself. She didn’t know her worth, but she does now. I can give her a hug and let her rest. It’s the only thing I can do to move forward and let the stitches do their work.

Shame is just your ego reminding you of the feeling of trying something and failing, so you won’t do it again. Let ego be the death you don’t mourn, buried next to your selfishness. Time is growth and growth is time and we are all just trying and dying. There’s no in-between.

That’s my rant for today. Here’s a frolic picture.

[aspiringorwhatever]

(source)

[aspiringorwhatever]

Some bright spots in journeys as of late.

[aspiringorwhatever]

Hello to all, or none, or just me. I’ve been trying to get back to myself for a long time, and in turn, taking nature walks and writing all of the feelings down.

It’s been a hard year. I’ve felt the weight of grief and anger kneel on my chest and have been too weak to push it off. Finally it feels like I am getting stronger, and the bad stuff is losing its footing. That’s why I started this blog. To feel stronger every day. To share even when it feels like too much.

I walk through trees and smile at flowers and giggle at birds swooping by to say hello. I try to live my life more authentically, if only for my own sanity. I am hoping that by sharing, the weight will let go and get bored without me noticing it at all. I can focus on the good, and say a big old “fuck you” to the bad. The grand old “I forgot that you existed.” Okay yeah maybe I’ve also been listening to Taylor Swift a lot too, sue me.

This blog is for me; to heal, to hope, to make no sense, to joke. It’s for me. If you find yourself in its words too, welcome.

I hope you enjoy flowers and feelings… and curse words.