blubluebye

[blubluebye]

heaven knows i'm miserable now.

“heaven knows i’m miserable now.” a song recommended to me by dolly alderton, well not personally, but through her book that i scoured through looking for any meaning to apply to my 22-year-old life; and it turns out that heaven knows i’m miserable now is not only a bona fide jam, but also a pretty accurate description of my life currently (i know: how banal). in the moment i heard “in my life why do i give valuable time to people who don’t care if i live or i die” i realized i’ve regressed to the psyche of my insecure 5th-grade self, rattled by the twig-bitch bully who told me no one would care, or even notice, if i died.

the memory is visceral: we were engaged in a heated game of four-square. the stakes had never felt higher than during this recess, which felt like a culmination of months of side eye and shallow whispers into the ears of friends, commiserating over how utterly boring and useless i was. she was the most awful person i had ever met, and that made her approval of me all the more important. but each second, minute, effort of mine went unrequited. so i was all too aware that i wasn’t just fighting to stay in the game, i was fighting for the friendships that had been stolen me one by one. because if she eliminated and humiliated me, she succeeded in proving just how disposable i really was. so when she smirked with her nonexistent lips in pride of her victory and uttered the words that cost me at least $800 of therapy, i simply stared back because she was speaking into existence what i already felt and feared. it was a deep, gutteral pain that was the most excruciating i had ever experienced (until about 2 months later, when i was blessed with the wonders of menstrual cramps for the first time).

and pain can make you do crazy things, like embark on a google search that could surely take up 5 minutes of the next big netflix true-crime doc. because if you’re so disposable, then why not just dispose of yourself? a year or two later, i'd watch the show of the moment, glee, and see my search history be replicated with a song that isn’t about cough syrup, but also is about cough syrup (?) playing in the background. and i'd be deeply thankful that it was the mitt romney supporter who told me to off myself, because at least then i was able to decide she must be clinically insane… if it had been an obama supporter, well maybe then i would have actually consider if what she was saying held any legitimacy (ah, the simplicity of a 12 year-old’s sense of politics).

but now i am 22, and it feels like the disposability she projected on me is a boomerang, coming back around to knock me down once more. she didn’t know it then, but by labeling me as “disposable,” the bully elected to me a lifetime appointment. because being labeled the “disposable friend” colors the power dynamics of even your most reciprocal, loving relationships. it doesn’t matter the extent of your relationship, you’re always holding your breath for the moment where your friend or peer decides you are as useful as a spork (which is, not at all). and the breath feels especially deep when it’s amidst a change you feel unprepared for — adulthood — and you’re forced to consider who may leave you behind as they adapt to their own. i know caring about who sees me as disposable is a waste of time, but what the smith’s and i have strikingly in common is the self-awareness to recognize that even the most precious of time stands no chance against ego, so, in fact, we do care. we care a lot. and it sucks. so much so, that i am truly miserable. but if dolly alderton is to be believed, this feeling should only last until my mid-20s. someone start the timer.

[blubluebye]

well now what ?

The thing no one tells you about graduating from college is that the period that comes next is one you feel unbelievably unprepared for. Am I well versed in the works of Fanon and Foucault? Sure. Do I know enough about the model minority myth and various forms of political representation to fake my way through a dinner party? Hell yeah. Do I know how to quantitatively analyze data through the most confusing of softwares? I’ll generously give myself a tepid yes. Do I know how to be an adult? Absolutely not.

The first day in the dorms is a rush…the freedom, the staying out till it's light once again, the intellectual stimulation after years of dumbing yourself down to be more palatable to your peers, the limitless possibilities that you envision taking place over the next four years. Being an adult feels fucking amazing. Until it doesn’t. 

Because being a student still provides the comfort of childhood. You can have  academic achievements, impressive research, and multiple jobs -- all of which make you feel more adult than the last -- but at the end of the day, you still have someone you’re answering to, someone you can direct your thoughts and questions to, someone who will help pick up the pieces when you inevitably fail. Until you don’t.

And then you graduate, and you’re on your own. And this time, there’s no orientation. No one to hold your hand, no one whose job is to guide and support you. Instead, you have to hope that the friends you’ve chosen are willing to do that free of cost when you can’t do it all by yourself. And lucky for you, the moments they are make everything feel okay. But sometimes you’re above their pay grade, and those moments hit even harder. So you’re lonely. And scared. And uncertain. And lonely. And scared. And uncertain. Because how long can this period last? Until you get a job? Until you move into your first apartment? Until you feel financially stable? Or does it keeping go? Because that may just be too unmanageable. After all, I am only 22 years old. Old enough to vote. Old enough to drink. Old enough to buy a gun. But still so young that the world feels just as scary as it did when I was five. Except, at least when I was five, I had a stuffed animal and thumb to keep me comfort, but at 22 years old, sucking on my thumb is perhaps not the most appropriate resolution unless I want to start a lucrative (albeit problematic) Only-Fans career and ruin years of my orthodontist’s work (though he was the worst, so maybe I should just to spite him). I guess what I am asking is: what is the 22 year-old equivalent of a stuffed animal and thumb? Accepting suggestions at imlosingmyshit@gmail.com.