Let's celebrate my being back with
a long, complicated post about feelings! YAY! Please, don't get too overjoyed
by this, as I want your focus to be 100% directed at what's written
ahead.
I guess it's never
immediate to realize the passing of the years, at least it isn't for me, which
is understandable, sure, 'cause I've only seen 17 years pass by, of which I can
only remember about 12 or so. What I'm trying to say is, it takes me a while for
it to sink in that I'm supposed to magically be and feel a year older (shout
out to my friend Angie over at Float. who
turned 17 like three days ago too, so yeah, look at us babies grow). I don't
remember where I read this, but it is kind of ridiculous for birthdays to be
centered on the person getting older, when it should actually be sort of a
celebration for the mothers, I guess. I mean, it's probably not too much to
give them a little credit in exchange of the excruciating pain they went
through for hours just so that tiny little babies could see the light. But
anyways, the other big thing about getting older is that you should also mature and all that stuff,
right? That's the more scary part of it all. And there's seriously so many books/movies/albums/songs/articles/paintings/blablabla
dedicated to it, and to that alone,
it's kind of unsettling. It's basically like you have all the road maps so that
you can find your way out of adolescence or childhood or whatever that you
don't get to really find the path you're comfortable with to start your
journey. If that happens, I guess that you have to suck it and be done with it and
just go forward however you can. It's like life's telling you: "sorry,
man, we gave you a chance, and you blew it, deal with it." There's tons of
stories about people trying to deal with it, "The
Catcher in the Rye" is probably the main one for me. It's just a
kid, kind of insufferable at times, I'll give you that, finding his way to
adulthood from a place of unhappiness. There's this whole pressure that you get
from the outside world too, like how you have to fit into these categories in
order to be a future successful human being. UGH. HUMANS.
Personally, I find
this nerve-wrecking, and it's also not exactly the kind of thing that you can
talk about with your friends directly, you know. Like: 'Hey, what's up? How are
you coping with society's pressure over the next generation and the possible judgments
of whether you're a fuck-up or the next big thing?' That's why, my dear,
non-existent readers, I am writing to you now. I think I found one of the
things that will help me mature big time, because it is one of my most
child-like doubts and flaws I
guess (ew, it's such a pretty word but so difficult to say without sounding skeptic).
That ‘thing’ that’s holding me back is the irrational fear of not being able to
be everywhere at once. It’s so unbelievably stupid,
but it is just so unnerving whenever I get frustrated at myself because I just
wasn’t there when a couple of my
friends hung out together and I get all freaked out they’re going to act
differently towards me because they have some inside joke that I won’t be able
to understand. It’s like this constant fear of feeling left out and just not
knowing that’s there and that won’t leave. And with the fear even comes
jealousy sometimes, like if someone of my close friends starts hanging out with
someone else because I can’t hang out with her for whatever reason and it’s
totally stupid and selfish and childish and dumb but I can’t help it. I like to
think of it as part of the human condition, actually. It has this other side to it too, which is this guilt I feel constantly because with the desire to be there comes the desire to know so it's like I always try to find new things to watch and read and listen too but then whenever I don't get around to sitting down and like analysing all these new things, I feel like the world is moving forward without me. If I don't read that article, listen to that album, I'll suddenly fall behind, with everybody ahead of me. That's getting easier for me to forgive myself for, because there was this Humans of New York post from like a week or so that really hit me, it's a philosophy professor who said that you should never make an exception of yourself. He says it as a way of being more hard on your judgment of yourself, but I'm taking it the other way: if I'd forgive someone for not knowing the complete of the Led Zep discography by heart, then I guess I could forgive myself. However, I know it’s the
sort of thing you should try to slowly let go off in order to grow into a better
person and stuff, so little by little, I’ll try to get there.
I’ll keep you posted,
Sofía
xx
