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this is gonna enter my vocabulary for sure

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Peanuts

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2025

I can’t believe I’m still on this silly little website.

I made my first account in 2009 I think. And here I am, still, just under new management more or less.

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[via]

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Nature-inspired colors in a Stockholm apartment

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American poetry, Brendon Burton

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Feeling like you’re not good enough for other people is really the worst feeling.

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Chicago, 2024

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by lhackett

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Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981)

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I have paid off my student loans.

First began taking them out in 2012 and graduated college in the summer of 2016.

Started paying them when I immediately began college, with monthly interest payments.

I worked almost 40 hours a week as a full time student, maintained a GPA above 3.0 and had an active social life. I went to a college in state, chosen because it was the cheapest of the four I was accepted to, and commuted everyday.

When I graduated college, my monthly payments were around $500-$600 a month. I was working in the same restaurant job I had during college for the next 4 years while desperately seeking a full time position.

In 2017 my grandfather passed away and I received some money which was all put toward getting rid of the loans with the higher interest rates I had been paying since I was 18 years old. This was absolutely a privilege, and I was still left with about $30,000 (?) in federal loans.

In June of 2018 I owed 26,320. In 2020 I finally got a full time job. Covid happens, monthly payments were frozen, a gift honestly. I started saving up my monthly payments and then paying off individual loans in large chunks. I have applied for PSLF as a government employee and was still about 80 qualifying payments shy of forgiveness when I made the decision to just get rid of it all.

I paid the last individual loan a few days ago.

This timeline may not seem that impressive but to me it is.

I’ve never traveled, I’ve never left the country, I didn’t do spring break vacations, I couldn’t afford to move out of my parents home until I was 28. I stayed at jobs I absolutely hated and drove cars until they couldn’t be driven anymore. I had panic attacks from the fear of never getting out of the debt. I remember breaking down on the basement steps of my parents home after coming home from work at 11pm because I was just burnt out from the worrying and anxiety, I was 22. I use to make the joke that if I died, yeah I’d be dead, but at least my loans would be gone.

My story isn’t special or unique, it’s not particularly heart wrenching or moving anyone to tears but I know somewhere out there, there are other 21 year olds suddenly finding themselves in this situation. It’s a feeling worse than drowning. It can make you question everything and wonder if it was all worth it for an education.

College is where I fell in love with learning, but was it worth it? I will never be the same person I was again because of the anxiety caused by the financial stress I faced at a young age. I missed out on so many of the things young people are urged to do and explore because I was busy keeping up with debt. I had years of unhappiness because of the need for financial security and being terrified to take risks in my career choices.

I’m left wondering since I made that final payment, was it worth it? I have a BA In History with a minor in cultural anthropology. I loved perusing my studies.

I am a personnel officer/clerk for a municipal government. College degree helps my position but was not necessarily a requirement.

Will it equal out somewhere down the line? I really don’t know.

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I need to (remembers to not make casual suicide jokes in order to encourage a more outwardly positive mindset and healthy conversational environment in my day to day life) kill myself

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And I gave up everything, the ghost of myself,

just to be the one

you thought you wanted

And I gave up everything, haunting my mind,

to make you feel like

you were in my pocket

But now I’m here all alone,

clawing at caskets in my memory

trying to resurrect some peace

to get back who I use to be