Pros and cons lists are a fantastic tool when evaluating just about any possible decision you wish to make. While it’s important to be transparent and hopeful that one side will outweigh the other, you have to keep your mind open to both angles. You need to linger on each potential outcome and determine how they make you feel, and how they could affect your life. This is fair, but my twist on it isn’t. When it comes to the pros, I nearly have to wrestle them out of me. There is this underlying dread that filters my mind where I think that everything I want is destined to backfire. I find comfort in the cons, write them with care because they justify my hesitation towards everything. They cushion my excuses and give others the illusion I have been fair to myself. My loved ones assume that I took the time to consider the pros before giving in to the cons. Few people are aware of my factory settings. What they don’t know won’t hurt them, but it’s slowly ripping me apart.
Relatability can help you pass under the radar. If you can express yourself in a way that is tangible for others, where they find reflections of themselves in you, then it’s okay. Be self deprecating, overthink as much as you want, let the world know how negative you are. I am grateful for the people that read my articles and feel understood, but I must confess that I do take advantage of this reception. Feeling relatable helps me put off the changes that I need to prioritize in my day to day. Multiple people in the past have told me to never get my hopes up and I made it a full time job. Consider this my letter of resignation.
Loss. That’s the lens that structures my vision, the way I look at the world. Each birthday marks a fragment of my youth that I’ll never get back. Each year is a step closer to a deeper independence, freedom is gained but familiarity shatters as I try to walk my own path. I am constantly mourning the past. To look back is to see everything that is no longer mine and I struggle to attach myself to whatever is happening around me because it can all be so temporary. I remember going to the beach as a little girl and filling my fist with sand. I would challenge myself to clench my tiny hand as I dipped it underwater, with the goal of not allowing the grains of sand to leave my grip. The waves cackled at me as they took the sand away because who was I to challenge nature? To go against the current, race against time. In the end, the few remnants of sand traced lines on the inside of my hand, creating a memory of my attempt at control.
I replaced the rough grains with people, academic achievements, and artistic endeavors. Always fearing the current, always conscious that I would lose something. An empty hand that never learned to appreciate the moments in which it was full. Funny how childhood foreshadows adulthood, we think that growing a few inches and speaking a bit lower erases the parallels in our behavior. That little girl and I have the same fears, but I need to learn to be brave for both of us. It is exhausting to prepare for the worst in any scenario, especially when you leave out the part of hoping for the best.
When I spoke about my twenties previously, heavy details were shared in terms of my overall disappointment. Not only towards how things were unfolding but with myself, my ability to go one step further and ten steps back. I hold my failures up to the sun, inspecting them for any dust just in case I need to whip them out as if they were a letter of recommendation. My small victories, the words of praise that I’ve received so early on in my career, are left unspoken, tucked away in the spam inbox that I check but never truly pay attention to. Good things have happened to me, I have met amazing people and done things that earned the spotlight in my journal entries but I can’t seem to accept that they are mine. It’s as if someone else earned those things and I am the placeholder until they return. But my bad moments? Instances of failure and crushing rejections? Those landmarks are burned into the fiber of my being, and I allow them to cast judgement on my future.
But, they can both be mine. Why should one cancel the other? Frowns exist but smiles do too, we all have the capacity to emulate both genuinely. Yes, I’ve cried my eyes out but I’ve also laughed so hard that any words that came out of my mouth required subtitles. I have fallen flat on my face, time and time again, but here I am, writing away because I survived even the worst of failures. Amidst my negativity, I am still a person that tries. Not only that, but I have collected accomplishments that are recognized by everyone except me. Through my emotional turmoil, I have taken the chance to question why I am the way that I am and my understanding of myself has grown exponentially. So, maybe in terms of goals, I might not be exactly where I had pictured myself at this age but I am doing the work. I will cross any and every metaphorical finish line I conjured up in my head soon enough.
I want to wait for the sequels in my life with a joyful anticipation, not an existential dread. There will always be room for fear but it should have never been my compass. I’ve allowed it the final say in most of my decisions, a commanding power over my wildest aspirations. I can’t say that I will ever vanquish it completely, all human emotion should be at my disposal but I refuse to clench my fist around it any longer, to try and save it from the waves of opportunity. I will open my hand under water and hope that I will no longer feel empty when the grains of self-doubt leave my soul. They might have kept me company all these years but I can always make new friends.
There is not a dream in my heart that does not require a deep commitment to myself. It would be bad if I didn’t worry, if I didn’t feel like I could be doing more. That reflects a desire to expand on potential that has been highlighted by others but it is necessary that it is seen by me. Sure, there are many more things left to lose but to give no meaning towards what is gained is to lessen the impact of my life. There are people that think of me randomly during their day, there are people that read my words even if they struggle to relate to them but they love me enough to try. There is art in this world with my name on it, jokes that reflect my memories, and anecdotes that detail time spent with me. I am here and people have noticed.
I sometimes say that I am in a limbo, a state of being that is suspended from reality, the in-between where nothing happens. Movies have led us to believe that our lives should contain a specific plot structure, with explosive events, and sequels that stretch on for decades. It’s okay to just be here and to simply meditate on that fact. I am grateful to be here.
The present can be wasted on us, we only know how to appreciate it in retrospect when our hands are empty. I want to experience the moments that trace the lines inside my hand, that watch me age as the years go by. I want to remember how things were, not just how they made me feel and that requires me being here. So, here’s to my twenties. They won’t earn a billion dollars at the box office but I am well aware that I am going to miss them when they are gone. They might not be what I imagined but they can be the bridge towards what I dream for my future, therefore I should focus on living the hell out of them. You should too, and let me know how it goes. Until then, I wish you the very best.