But Mother I Dont Want To Grow Up!!

Just another MS 3 trying to find her little doctor legs..

[inkskinned]

you get used to it, but it's tiring, because they need you to understand your own life as a series of goalposts. what college are you going to, what's your major going to be, whatcha gonna do with that, oh where will you settle down, when can i expect grandkids.

for the longest time my goals have been so blurry that they track into each other, their undefined edges slipping quietly back into the soft night. today i want to be a writer; tomorrow i will want to be a doctor, later i will wish i took that law school free ride. how the fuck do people just know what they want to do with their life?

where do you want to be in five years? i want to be alive; which is a huge step for me. ten years ago i would have said i want to be asleep and meant i hope that i'm dead by then.

but i want a yellow kitchen and a stand mixer. i want a garden and a fruit tree (cherry, if i can make that happen) and a big yard for my dogs to play in. i want to come home and read poetry out loud to someone and have them close their eyes to listen. i want a summer watergun fight. i want to make snowmen. i want to be the house to go to for halloween. i want my life to settle around me in a softness, for it to lay down gently. if i am very, very, very lucky, i want to travel; finally go someplace overseas.

of course i don't know what i want to be doing professionally. what i actually want to be doing is curling up beside my dog, settling in to read. i want to be making myself a cup of good coffee.

i can't answer the other questions. whenever people asked me what do you want to be when you grow up, i used to say i hope i'm happy.

i hope i'm still kind, five years from now. i hope i never get jaded and mean. i hope i have stayed in therapy. what do you picture yourself doing? when will you actually be an adult about this? why are you so afraid of being ambitious?

am i not ambitious? the other day i rearranged my furniture which doesn't quite fit into my apartment. i watered my plants. i'm going to try to propagate a cherry seed. my five year goal is to spend more time laughing. to lie down in a patch of sunwarm moss. to relax for a minute. to close my eyes and think oh thank god. this is why i stayed. this is finally it.

[missinyouiskillingme]

“I tried so hard. You know that, right? I tried harder than you could ever imagine, and now here I am, trying my best just to forget everything. Every piece of you, the way you smell, the feel of your skin. I can still feel you. I think I always will.”

— I think I always will

[dear-ao3]

[inkskinned]

it took me 964 applications. i've been counting, but not well. i don't always add every quick-apply to the spreadsheet. this one was five rounds of interviews. saying my elevator pitch like a parrot, peppy and happy. for a long time, i didn't hear anything from them. i thought it was the same as always - they say where did we find you, seem excited, then ghost me. i had sent three follow-up emails hi, just checking in! excited for this opportunity!

i have a master's degree and over 10 years of work in the industry. i've worked 5 jobs at once. i have worked hard and i tried hard my entire life, no matter how burnt out i got or whatever else happened to me. i am the representation of the american dream.

but i'm not a good fit for an entry-level job, i guess, so i get told a lot we just don't think you're be happy. but they fill other positions internally, instead saying - well, there was another candidate who had 6 more days of experience. if i'm lucky, i get this sad little email back from the recruiter, all saying the same thing: we liked you, but we went with another option, good luck job hunting. that is - if i'm lucky, and they even communicate at all with me.

what a waste of fucking time. i've been counting interviews - i am a fucking master total of 42 fucking hours. can you fucking believe. i would have made rent if they'd fucking paid me.

and now nobody does remote, even though this is a job that for the last five years has been remote-completely. now they are paying 14 an hour for a job that used to be 33.50. now they are saying we are looking for rockstars and mean we don't give you health insurance. "we need someone motivated and a little crazy" translates to you will have one day of PTO annually. every job board filled with the same AI-generated bullshit of "our values/join our family/Make Waves With Us". they need to be constantly growing. who knows if they're genuinely hiring.

sometimes i want to write did you know i saved a life once into the cover letter. sometimes i want to put a little secret in there, a little short story about how when i was a kid i used to dream of speaking to my plants. i have the same six conversations with people and answer the same eight questions. sometimes at the end they'll throw something in there that's completely irrelevant. what is my go-to belting song (and yes, they say, there is a wrong answer). what animal would i turn into. what's the most reactive element i've had direct contact with. do i know how to lift an elephant.

964 feels like a nice number, somehow round and pleasing. sometimes i have nightmares where the spreadsheet grows arms and strangles me to death. i saw an old friend in one of these recently; he said the earth will end and you'll still be applying until you run out of breath. 964 is a lot of time to spend filling out an application on a site that doesn't load properly and just steals my information.

one time in desperation i applied for a supermarket position. just anything to make the ends meet, good lord, i'd take anything. i was rejected from it. i'm not, like, proud. i'd take anything so i can afford to live again. and meanwhile, god! our fucking president!

i can't think about it without shaking. i had to beg for help. i paid my own way through college - i have been working (under the table) since i was 12.

nine hundred and sixty-four. and finally! something! and here's the fucking thing: i had to turn it down because it's in your city. how pathetic to think that 2 months ago, i would have agreed to move out to DC, my hands in your hair. my life splashed on your sheets. how pathetic that 2 months ago, you said you wanted me. 964 fucking jobs later, and how pathetic! i can't say yes because my life is entirely different. holy shit.

it's just hell. because god fucking protect you if you have a breakup or a mental breakdown or health issues or need your meds. you can try for a year and still hear fucking nothing from the job market. i have no idea how many times i've said i give up and i still fucking kept doing it. every moment like sandpaper against a raw wound. lowering and lowering my expectations. watching my savings dwindle to nothing. thank you for submitting your application!

back into the frying pan. over and over again.

[inkpressedpetals]

[haystarrs-deactivated20200728]

[peakingeveryday-deactivated2025]

[theboy-thebitch-thelegend]

[scorpionlafemme]

[jordanbolton]

To The Painters of Pompeii - Jordan Bolton

My first book ‘Blue Sky Through the Window of a Moving Car’ is now available to pre-order! Get it here - https://smarturl.it/BlueSky

[nixscriptum]

[scorpionlafemme]

[ribbonlike-and-shrieking]

[typhlonectes]

[furiousgoldfish]

parents will be like "We're good parents! We did our best!" while their child is alone in their room, terrified of footsteps, unable to conceptualize being loved by anyone.

[astrangertomykin]

My medieval servant boy has gone missing. I’ll just use Google to see if I can find him.

[astrangertomykin]

Oh bother.

[dggeoff-deactivated20161128]

im deleting this fucking website

[best-chance-deactivated20161213]

It took me a minute

[keepcalmandcarriefischer]

Gotdamn I haven’t seen this post in almost a decade

[sixmonthsandgone]

Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin (2018), dir. Arwen Curry

[aiweirdness]

The next line of her speech is also great: “Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.”

[radicalgraff]

“If you promise to stay alive just a little bit longer I promise that we are going to make this world a place worth living in by any means necessary. I ain’t giving up. I swear.” 

Spotted in Clackamas, Oregon

[anarchopuppy]

I can’t stop thinking about this message, so I spent a while trying to isolate just the writing and make it transparent. I might order a shirt with it

Whoever in Clackamas wrote this message on their bus stop, I love you

[slipperyslideyday]

[ if you promise to stay alive just a little bit longer I promise that we are going to make this world a place worth living in by any means necessary.  I ain’t giving up. I swear. end caption ]  

[avendell]

For Old Times' Sake 🌙

[senlinyu]

Farewell, my love.