march 2016 | hey hi hello. i’m sitting at a panera bread right now and i’m supposed to be writing an essay for my philosophy class on various belief systems that best explain metaphysical reality but thinking about that topic has me thinking about concepts of existence and time and growth and other things that i don’t typically think about on a wednesday morning at 11AM. i turned 21 last monday, and even though I realize that Your 21st Birthday(^tm) is a very culturally-charged trope, i’m so excited and proud of myself and making it to 21. which is enough causation for intense reflection and reflection-turned-ramblings on a wednesday morning for me. so here is an unedited and v raw post about love and sadness.
on love, falling in love, and self-love
i am that annoying idiot of a person who falls in love with everyone and everything. as i’ve grown older i’ve realized that people are far shittier and awful than i could have ever imagined (see: donald trump, chris brown) but i’ve also simultaneously discovered that people are far more beautiful, kind, and amazing than i could have ever imagined (see: my friends, my family, and you, probably, unless trump is somehow reading this blog post). i’m so in love with that latter fact. there is quote from an Allen Ginsberg poem that says “the weight of the world is love,” and I feel like my late teens/early 20s has been the embodiment of that phrase. love is both a blessing and a burden.
there’s the silly love i feel, like how i’m in love with sufjan stevens, i’m in love with carly rae jepsen (4 the love of god, pls listen to E-MO-TION), and how i’m SO in love with bees that i cry if i think too hard about them (they are divine creatures who we are so ungrateful to/do not deserve). and then there’s familial/friendship love, like the love i have for my family members and friends, and the love i have for my cat (lil light of my life).
and then there’s romantic love. which like, the idea of just gives me anxiety. i hate being that person that’s like, “boo hoo, i haven’t been lucky in love,” but boo fucking hoo, i haven’t been lucky in love. and for the longest time i thought i was a martyr of how perfect love should be, and that all of my failures in love were a direct result of the other person’s inability to love properly. i know i’m wrong now. there were definitely issues that were out of my control and, without any bitterness or blame, were handled in an inexcusable way, but i realized that i too was making a mockery out of love.
i am a grade A noob at love. at 17 i thought i loved a boy because he listened to the antlers and neutral milk hotel and wrote poetry. at 18, i thought i loved a boy because he told me i was beautiful and he, too, knew what it felt like to be sad. at 19 i actually loved a boy, but we were both too lonely and sad and used love for our own selfish agendas. at 20 i fell in love with a terrible person but oh my god was he hot. probably as selfish as he was hot. as awful as he was hot. and then at 20 i fell in love with someone else because we were both just looking for someone to hold. at 20 i cry a lot because i feel like love has betrayed me. and then i realize that it’s actually i who have betrayed love with my messed-up understanding of it. love is not infatuation or spark, it is not shared similar interests, it is not sustainable based solely on mutual physical attraction. love is patient, love is kind… blah blah blah. love is work. love is compromise. love is a conscious decision to put in effort and work. and love fails when either one or both parties decides to give up on putting in the work.
so at 21 i’m making the conscious decision to rid the idea of soulmates, the idea that you need another person to make you feel complete. i don’t find my place through other people — i make my own body my home. at 21 i fall in love with books, i fall in love with friends, and i fall in love with myself. i’m still learning how to love and i’m still figuring it out and i sure as hell am still messing up. but this vision of unconditional self-love is the love that i want to embody in my 20s.
anyway, let’s play a drinking game where you take a shot for every time i mention the word “love” in the previous few paragraphs. jesus.
on mental health + sadness
i think turning 21 was/is such a big deal to me because there was a point in my life when i really had no interest in making it to this age. a bit after my 19th birthday, i wholeheartedly wished i would not be alive to see 20. and here i am, at 21, so glad that i did. i’ve alluded to my mental health struggles a lot of times, i think, but have never really explicitly talked about it. without getting into too much detail, it started getting really awful when i was 18. i was in an environment where i didn’t feel like being depressed was allowed — that it was something so horrible, foreign, and shameful. i was dealing with a crippling lack of self-confidence and an inability to be myself and express myself to other people (which i’m now learning is social anxiety). i hated myself every time i opened my mouth to speak and truly thought i did not deserve to be alive, and then hated myself for feeling that feeling. all of this caused me to start wondering how many pills it would take me to stop breathing. then i started to fantasize about the idea of me not breathing. then, a little after my 19th birthday, i calculated the exact number of pills it would take for me to stop breathing. 21 is such a big deal to me because 2 years ago, i almost made the decision to not be alive anymore.
i’m kind of silently ugly-crying while writing this at panera and the lady at the cash register keeps giving me the “honey, are you okay?” look. i want to tell her i’m not crying because i’m sad, i’m crying because i’m actually so, so so proud of myself and happy at how far i’ve come.
i don’t know why i’m writing all of this. i think it’s partially because this experience has helped shape so much of who i am today. but mostly i’m writing this because i know that there are people who feel exactly like i did, and deal with the weight of the world by fantasizing how much lighter the world would be without them in it. and god i can’t explain how much i want to hug them and hold them and tell them that life is worth it. that your life, specifically, is fucking worth it. i am not the poster child of grief. i know my experience of sadness is relatively mild compared to so many people. but it’s still there, it still affects me, and it’s still valid. so is yours. fuck, i want so so badly for you to know that whatever horrible feelings and emotions you are currently feeling are temporary and that it totally does get better. i’m not saying that from the moment you decide to not kill yourself, it’s smooth sailing. there are still days when it is next to impossible for me to get out of bed. there are days when i feel discouraged and hate how terrible i am at social interaction. when i feel like i have so much to say but am silenced by my inability to be myself in the presence of other people. but i’m living, i’m loving, and i’m learning that all of the good is so, so much more than any of the bad.
since deciding not to kill myself, i’ve: grown so close with my amazing, loving family, learned to stop apologizing for every time i open my mouth, FINALLY have a kitty/friend/lil guy who i cuddle with EVERY NIGHT (!!!), found myself in other continents experiencing incredible new things, almost peed my pants on the regular because of my hilarious lil bro, met so many amazing people with so many different, incredible experiences, fell in love with books, fell in love with people, fell in love with myself. keep falling in love with myself. so please. if you are ever feeling hollow and think that the world is better without you in it, this is me asking you to make the conscious decision to stay alive. because life is worth it and so are you. and i promise that someday you will get to the point where i am and be so grateful to yourself for making that decision.
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if you read everything, thank you. thank you for listening to my rushed post-class/pre-work ramblings and my attempt to interpret all the crazy things that have led me to be the person that i am today. thank you for being in my life, regardless of how little or big of a part you play. i am grateful for you.
