i’ve got the same three songs stuck in my head for the past week. i don’t even like two of them. i binge watch a tv show i don’t enjoy but doesn’t encourage me to think, even though i promised i’d watch that 12-part documentary. i drink too much and you jokingly ask me “why are you like this”. the truth is i also don’t know why i’m like this. i’d rather be paying my rent on time instead of asking for constant extensions. i’d rather have finished that book or that project. i’d rather just listen to a new song and get the rest out of my head.
source: im a grad student. i’ve had a lot of school. also i’m adhd & mentally ill and require +8 organization. this is mostly directed @ college students, but maybe high school students can use it too, fuck, idk, it’s been forever since i was stuck in that hell hole
For the artists who went unnoticed, who filled margins and sketchbooks but never let the pictures see the light of day. For the writers who never could get the people they loved to read their work; who spent hours a day pouring effort into pages only to never have readers, never have positive feedback. For the dancers with the “wrong” body type. For the actors who only ever got small roles. For the musicians who had choir voices or ninth chair skills or nobody in the audience.
For hearing “what’s the point of taking a class that easy,” for not being allowed to take the class at all. For hearing “I can do better,” or worse, that noncommittal “oh”. For hours working not even given a second of someone’s time. For parents that occasionally glanced it over but mostly waved it off and said “it’s fine do your homework.” For knowing you’re not good enough to make a profit from it, for being told a lack of commission quality was the same thing as being worthless, for believing it. For not being considered “talented” but somehow remaining passionate. For the not-good-enoughs, who never got famous, never got seen, never got anything.
For the creators. Even when you were unnoticed and unloved and embarrassed of your passions. Even when it hurt and got annoying and felt foolish to be doing. Even when nobody was looking: you made things. You saw empty space and pulled from the ether. You put your heart and soul into things other people never bothered knowing. You were told you were wasted on what you loved; you loved what other people considered a waste.
No more making in the dark. I want to see what you do even if “it’s bad”, even if nobody else ever asks you to. Come into the light. Make to spite them. Make for a younger you that didn’t have the energy, make because they couldn’t kill what burned in you even after years of suffocating, make because the idea of not-making is scary. Make for the sheer sake of making, because all art is an act against entropy. Make and be happy. It doesn’t need to be amazing. Do you know what you’re doing every time you’re creating.
The word “abracadabra” means “I create as I speak.” Tell me you aren’t magic. You force something from nothing. You made. And you make. How much more powerful can one person be?
for a long time, it didn’t work. a bird that never learned flying. a car with no engine. a body god forgot to put a person into.
i would try to be movie-star happy, even a little, even a slice of it. practiced the steps. parties and beaches and selfies with friends. good food and netflix binges. long walks and singing to the radio and talking until the sun was rising.
i was empty. happy slid off me. even good moments felt hollow, like if i looked too hard at them, they’d crumble.
okay.
what worked was settling for good-enough. no, it wasn’t going to be magical. it was going to be okay, and that was still a high goal. i remember one day thinking: my happy will never be as happy as other people are.
my happy didn’t show up on christmas morning. it didn’t come in a costume on halloween. the hole i had to fill was too big to sew shut for 24 hours. i had to work to patch myself back up. years of it. of slogging. of mud.
and then one day i realized i was more than just okay. i was good. and that good turned into happy. and that happy lasted, bone-strong and steel thick, unbending. my life still had bad things in it. but i had sealed the hole and made the healing stick. i still have days where the darkness comes in.
and some days now, i am movie-star happy. i feel laughter in a place i forgot the sunshine could get to. i wake up on holidays and dont mime the excitement. the excitement is true.
it might not be, you know, as happy as everyone else’s happy. but i wake up and i feel… good.
A part of being an adult is living with regret and not allowing it to consume you. The older you get, the more mistakes you’ve made, opportunities you’ve missed, people you’ve disappointed. And every day you have to remind yourself to be kind and forgiving of yourself. You accept and love the you from the past and understand that it’s all a part of the process. Then you move on and live your best life, knowing now as old as you feel today, you’ll never be this young again.
