25/05.
My downstairs neighbor is a very happy kid.
Whenever the kid gets home, they say hi to their mom, but it's not your usual "hey", more like a boisterous, full of joy “hello!”. I love listening to that kid saying hello every day when they get from school. It makes me smile, the way that kid is able to transmit that joy— genuinely happy to be home and their parents.
I hear that kid laugh a lot too. On Saturdays, sometimes I hear the entire family discuss their plans as they go downstairs, or when they are back, I can hear them talk about whatever it is they did. They all sound filled with joy. It doesn’t really make me jealous, it’s just a weird thing I’ve grown accustomed to hear, background noise that always makes either smile or just snort.
My favorite thing about my downstairs neighbors kid is not just how joyous that kid clearly is, it’s how much the parents’ kid work to celebrate whatever thing the kid does.
About two years ago, on the last day of school, the parents of put up a sign on the door, a banner of sorts to celebrate that the school year ended— the kid was now leaving whatever grade and going to another. It was a homemade banner, nothing fancy or aesthetic. Just a simple good job on finishing the school year message. I remember it included a silly drawing, with also some very big balloons.
When I first saw it, I thought how amazing it is to celebrate such simple thing. I’d never seen that, parents celebrating the fact their child had done this huge , yet simple, accomplishment —ending the school year— that had nothing to do whether they finished it first place, or whatever. I thought how amazing is to grow up in a place where you are celebrated for things that may look ordinary, but really, they aren’t.
Sometimes I worry someone or something is going to harm that child. That their pure, genuine joy will be messed with, dimmed down or tampered with. I worry that the kid, who is now almost reaching pre-teens years will change, becoming bitter, angrier.
*
In one of the jobs that I had, I had to babysit pre-teens, other times actual grumpy teenagers.
At first, I was kind of annoyed of having to do this. But then again, exploitation is fun when you trick yourself into believing there’s a real reason to do this: I convinced myself it would be okay, mainly because I could go outside, walk a bit, take a breather and gather myself. I thought I could isolate myself— really, my ingenuity is what always gets me.
Anyway. The pre-teens were less than 50 tiny humans, and they were —most of the time— super easy to babysit, as they rarely tried to do any messy crap (or I was oblivious to it all). It was simple, just you know, stand in one location and pay attention to your surroundings. Like being a dog at a mall. Me being me, I didn’t like standing, so I just ended up walking around the perimeter of the park, listening to music, watching the pre-teens.
Sidenote 1: they weren't tiny. Some were talled than me.
Sidenote 2: one of my favorite playlists came up from those walks. My heart rate and overall health was never better than during those 5 months I spent walking like a hounded animal. I hope I never have to do that again.
The thing is that, at some point, I stopped looking at the floor and started to actually watch the pre-teens. The youngest ones, they liked to play, a lot. They climbed on trees, yelling and throwing themselves to the ground, some with more bravado than others. Others would chase each other, an endless race of who could catch whom; a few liked playing football with the surly teenagers. All of them, however, would eat their snack really fast, what mattered to them was to get to the park and go to play.
I felt like a weird natgeo observer, taking into this discovery that all of them had managed to preserve their playfulness. When was the last time I had played for the sake of it? I couldn’t even tell you. I never gave into my urgency to join them in game (a co-worker did and for that, she will always be a special human), but I just loved how happy it made me watching them play, instead of being people intensely aware of the pressures of social hierarchy. It’s not that they didn’t care about that, they did, of course they did, but they were also able to remember they had 35 minutes to put that aside, to ignore the popularity contest, the obligations that come with being in an oppressive environment, that required them to obey, comply.
At a time, it made me nostalgic. Other days, where my mood was really dark, I caught myself crying over the loss of my playfulness, how it felt as if it had been ripped from me. Most of the time, though, I just walked around, watch them shriek, fight, tumble and get up again, sweaty foreheads and messed up uniforms. I can accept now I got upset when it rained, a personal attack because they couldn’t enjoy their minutes of freedom.
I think I wrote somewhere that the saddest thing about having a fucked up mental health is that enjoying life becomes this impossible, almost insurmountable task. That it’s so rare to find joy in the world, obsessed as we tend to be with happiness, the idea that happiness is the only thing that will make us whole. Joy, I’ve come to understand, is fleeting, temporal, finite. Mary Oliver wrote a poem about it, about giving into the joy, just for the sake of it, just because in it we may find what will give us peace, what will remind us we are human. Joy is better than happiness.
*
On the last days of May of that year, I was starting to think I needed to quit that job. I was exhausted, and I wanted a change. I didn’t like the work environment (tyrannical with a side of possibly, maybe, witnessing sexual harassment) and the pay was really bad. But I hold onto my decision until the very last day before the June break. That day, my surly, complicated, silly teenagers got in trouble for all agreeing to not go to a supposedly mandatory school field trip. Truth to be told, I didn’t want to go, so I was delighted to sabotage that shit and stay with my angry teenagers. I promised them a fun day: it’d be just us and another colleague, and we could watch the opening game of the Eurocup, watch a movie, listen to (my) music, even order food. Sold out, baby.
Sidenote: I was good at bribing but I have tyrannical tendencies. I will not be changing this anytime soon.
The surly teenagers all came to school that day. While they worked on their assignments, I worked on mine. I hurried them up, asking them to finish so we could go to the park, come back to order pizza and fried chicken (their choice). As an incentive to hurry up, I bribe them with donuts. It’s one of my favorite days of my life. Yes, they were still sometimes stuck in their fucking phones, scrolling through TikTok and listening to music, but I was able to just be a terrible adult and bribe them to drop their phones and just be present. We watched Independence Day (a few loved it, most found it weird, which granted), they ate their pizzas and fried chicken, and later we watched the game. Later, I sent them off home. It rained before pick up, and I said goodbye to all of them.
I cried on the way back home. I miss those kids a lot.
*
Pre-teens have this amazing way to always makes me feel out of place. I love it and hate it. It feeds my insecurities, it also makes me realize how stupid it is to be an adult. The thing I miss the most will always be how prickly, anxious and nervous they make me feel. How good it feels to work hard to earn their attention, especially when no bribing is included.
I’ve always being a fan of making sure that the pre-teens and surly teenagers could get some joy. I told them once that joy is resistance, and one of the angsty teens looked at me and asked me what was he resisting. I said me.
He later wrote me on a quiz: not answering this quiz is a form of joy, and joy is resisting authoritarianism. I played Rebel Rebel by David Bowie all day after reading that and gave him an A.
*
I was mindlessly scrolling shit on instagram and I spotted this really cute owl done by someone, and I thought alright, this is a tattoo I could get. I wrote to the tattoo artist who had done the illustration, and got it done on my left calf. As most of my tattoos, it’s black ink. The owl is standing on a branch, looking directly at whoever looks at it. It’s beautiful, one of my favorite tattoos.
After a few months of getting it done, I finally decided to admit to myself the reason of why I got it. It reminded me of the pre-teens and surly teenagers. A group of them had loved learning about Ancient Greece, about the Greek Gods, and the Trojan War. I told them about Ulysses, how those stories talked about war, betrayal, pain, grief, but also about how to hold a spear, trick Cyclops, get lost in the sea and how to pray. I told them how my first tattoo came from Tennynson’s poem, how it was a sort of prayer for me. They all hated the quizes and all the memory shit I put them through, but they loved discussing the gods of the Olympus.
The owl is Athena’s animal form. It represents the founder of Athens, and one of the pre-teens had found a video on TikTok that explained the owl could be found in coins. I never told that the owl is typically linked to Athena for her wisdom, bravery and sharpness. My owl tattoo is in honor of those pre-teens and surly teens, the ones who cared about Athena, the ones who fell asleep as I talked endlessly, the ones who got angry at me for being so harsh; the ones who liked to ask me random shit at 7 am.
Truth is, I wanted to honor them. It’s a reminder of what they meant to me, how much joy I felt whenever I was around them (even when I wanted to stab a pencil in my eye). The owl is a reminder that people can grow up to be shitty, that we all go dark, but shit, once we were joyful, brave and bold, even when our struggles are putting us down.
*
Grief is strange. It comes and it goes in waves. Grief, I think, is the opposite of joy. It’s as fleeting, intense, it reminds us how vulnerable we all are.
I’ve come to embrace joy the same way I’ve come to embrace grief, too. To sit with it, quietly, a strange companion to have. I like that is always quiet. The way grief and joy remind that, with time, and a bit of patience, I can be okay.













