4.13.20
Young, strong, beautiful, burning with fire and passion and life,
I don’t remember what it was like
to feel these feelings and write these words
that a social media relic from my college days tells me
I threw into the internet void all those years ago.
I’ve grown, I know that, there is so much I’ve learned since then
but why does growing feel like dying? why does it bring this pain?
I feel more scared than I’ve ever been, I feel more lost than I’ve ever been,
I feel more panicked, I feel more angry, I feel more anxious and depressed and broken and confused and lifeless and tired and falling apart.
But also for the first time in maybe all this time, I feel.
I’m mad that this is who I always was.
I’m mad that I believed for so long and with such conviction that it wasn’t.
But I knew? A little bit. I remember
suspicion, doubt, a small voice in my head:
wrong, wrong, something is very very wrong.
I wasn’t ready to know, there was nothing I could have done then.
I don’t know if it’s right to think back to the light I had before
to yearn for a time when I believed I held clarity.
I’m no longer sure clarity even exists.
It’s annoying how cliche this all is, how predictably mid-20s finding yourself coming of age figuring out life crisis;
I’ve always thrived a little too much on the idea of being “different”.
Maybe that’s just a way of hoping I’m not as messed up as it looks.
The philosopher in me reminds me that even if I am that messed up,
that’s also still not unique either.
I wouldn’t call it common, but it’s nothing one would presumably write home about if they had one.
Or maybe they would, not that I would know.
I just want to curl up in a ball for a while, but I’ve got two more weeks before I can do that for as long as I need to, and then as I want to.
I’m tired though, so I’ll go to bed. I suppose it’s a place to start.













