Why do I feel like my life is over at age 22? When I was staring at the sugary glazed ‘23’ on my best friend's birthday cake the only thing I was thinking about was the grotesqueness of growing old. Of aging. The inevitability of lights going out. The moment the drop just stops. The fragility of life. Mortality.
Perhaps it's losing a year.. Two years? Who can even track the beginnings and ends of the life-sucking pandemic. Anyway. One day I was 20, or I was 21. Well, technically, I was 20 turning 21. I guess when I type it all out it doesn't feel that long. But perhaps it's this exact ambiguity of my early 20s in the shadow of a pandemic which has made me feel this way. Maybe it's the way that when I look back on my life thus far all I can remember is climbing and climbing and editing and researching and assignment submissions. For what?
These days I afford rent by making overpriced espresso drinks for my entitled peers. Do they too mourn their youth while sipping their $7 oat milk cappuccinos? God, I'm bitter. The money is not so bad. I guess the millennials prepared us zoomers for the impossibility of ever being a homeowner. Except when I check my email and am reminded of my student loan forgiveness period ending. Wasn't Biden supposed to at least give us that? Or was it gun reform? Tell that to those kids out in Ohio. Was it Ohio? It was Michigan. I looked it up.
What is there left to climb, to strive for, without the structure of school work and finals and A’s. More like A minuses in my case. Not like that matters much now. I am 22 and I am scared. God I am terrified.
I’ve been plagued by nightmares lately. Not just bad dreams. Nightmares. I think we've lost the nuance of verbage. The nuance of language. Is this the fault of social media? Of being forced to condense the multitudes and dualities of human experience into 140 characters or less. Just to be lost in the platitudes of others and ultimately be ratio’ed by something with a bit more....Wit.
I dont think I'm witty. Sarcastic? Definitely. Intelligent? I’ll give myself that one too. But wit? That is something I don't think I have.
So what is there left to strive for. I'm not quite witty enough for fleeting internet fame. Hardly talented enough for the finer creatives. And as aforementioned, social media has deprived humanity of any shred of an attention span, so I can’t even be a writer. I always wanted to be a writer.
It's easy to blame social media, isn’t it? I am not one to do so, but I guess this manifesto has left me standing corrected.
So what is to blame? The government? Obviously. But the appeal of anarchy has also lost its nuance. In the past year, two years..? Oh who fucking cares. We’ve watched fascism, xenophobia, an attack on the capital, and the daily fear of domestic terror rip through our social media feeds. Just for some guys from coney island shouting BING BONG to hold more of a grip on our culture.
I do think I am a bit of a nihilist. Maybe a bit of a cynic. Or a maybe im pessimist. Can you be both?
My coworker. He's 34. He just had a baby. His wife is 41. They met on Tinder. “Back when Tinder was taboo.” Tinder used to be taboo?
I asked him if he's a nihilist. He laughed.
“Don’t laugh! I know what it is, I have just never pronounced it out loud!”
“nai·uh·luhst” he corrected me.
Not niHILLest. Noted. Got it. Anyway,
He is. He is a nihilist. I don’t mean to sound morbid. Not in the midst of the cafe buzz. Not while cups with the various types of alternative milks scribbled on them are stacking up next to the espresso machine. Can you even call them milks? Wasn't there a lawsuit about that?
I feel bad for farmers. But I also feel bad for cows. I drink almond milk. Can you still call it that?
The internet says my fear of death could be because of its taboo in society. In our society. But is it? I think it's not taboo. It's just, as all things in this web of information (shit, no pun intended) lost its nuance.
“If someone did that to me i’d kill them”
seems to me like we talk about death quite often.
The Internet also posits that it is when we lose someone close to us, we ponder our own mortality. Brittany died two years ago. Almost exactly. Last year the anniversary slipped by me. I was drunk. Wine drunk. I had an exam the next day. I was sad. Those statements could be applied to many other days in my past 22 years. This year I feel scared. I haven't had an exam in nearly a year. I don't feel sad. And I'm quitting the vape. I really am this time. I even told my dad about it. I'm quitting cause Kyle has cancer. Shit. Kyle has cancer. It’s in his lungs. It's also in his bones.
Writing this felt good. Should I tell my dad that too? Maybe I can be a writer after all.
Friday night I was downtown. They say you’re a local in a city after 5 years. This is my fifth year in the city. That was my first time in this neighborhood. I met some guy named Jim. Jim's from the UK. He’s here for filming. A netflix series. Well, it's on amazon prime right now. But Netflix just bought it. Take that Jeff Bezos! He was friendly but not in a weird way, and he sang a karaoke song. No one else knew the words.
He told me I should write. So thanks, Jim. I’m gonna try.
dededos
germansingergirl
kianamaiart
titsay
baratheonpilled
pixelskylines
