The Champagne Soapbox

  • the ongoing sentence

    go outside feel your shoulders burn and freckles form to look in the mirror at a blushing face realizing the sun kissed you too much because you are loved deeply by whatever made the reflection that stares back i like to think they want you to find love outside of empty conversations and instead with the moon and the stars that pair the opposing yet agreeing texas sun one day you’ll find love in more than just yourself like the way you’re 23 but still braid your hair to show off how much you love the girl who grew up too early and make grocery lists with pink pens to feel how much sun loves you again in the parking lot of the grocery store and how much you hate the rain and driving home and overcompensating how much you can carry into to a lonely apartment in stormy weather and how the rain makes you feel like you have to cry when you don’t have a reason to so you convince yourself of a reason and crawl back into the bed that you never made because you knew you would return to it later but then you wake up to the sun peeking through a sliver of a curtain and see the freckles on your shoulder and the scratch from your cat so you start the machinery of the day and the rurring of your coffee and the ice falling in the fridge and remember the mortality of your existence glaring at your cat’s reminder of playfulness in the form of a scar and open the window to send good morning to the sun because your aunt told you that your freckles were kisses from heaven and you wanted love so badly that you would spend your hours in her backyard in your school clothes looking up and thinking about whose looking down except now you’re older and imagine you as your aunt watching the younger you from behind a window

    Once that’s over it’s be there in five I’m sorry I’m late be right back don’t worry about me I’m doing just fine how are you I’m okay and okay is okay because my body is a vessel for my soul to remain stable and okay is better than imbalance we are fine and the stars have aligned and my dreams could be mine all if i really work for it or if i really manifest it by writing down my assumed obsessions three times in a row or pray hard enough to someone or something I’m still debating the name to or ask around to have others guess at my fate for the sake of not knowing or you should just collect crystals and write their meaning attempt to use them to find your meaning over again and write it down loose papers half read books notes don’t forget write down and notes on the app using wordpress to buy the rights to your own words that sit in a tear stained journal with flowers on it because it symbolizes that you’re always growing or maybe even in the italian leather journal you spent extra coin on because on special occasions you need to separate your current reality from the future curiosities using words that your hand gets tired of repeating things like “would your higher self approve of this” “would your younger self dream of this” “would you be here writing still if it worked out (the way you saw and not the way the universe planned or the way your parents wanted them to or how that boy you’ll never see again imagines it to?)”

    you get a job that wants you to travel which means you can sit in the airport at four am and stare at strangers and imagine their morning or their life or your lives together and smile in silence and prioritize the aisle seat because you need an escape plan from everyone to even your own mind sometimes to dissociate when scheduled peer over a strangers shoulder and watch the space grow between you and the ground feel the idea of feeling grounded become harder you can’t focus when someone else is in control until you accept that not everyone is egocentric in their protection like you have been lately even the pilots kids tell their friends that their daddy spends his days in the air and his wife sleeps alone with a glowing phone text me when you land I’m glad you made it I’m glad to let others drive for me when it’s convenient just tell me what to think but not too much because I’ll still recover my own conclusion and since we don’t own the right to the route can I at least find the control of the wheel do I just need to hand my fear to pilot who splits clouds and looks down at the ground to imagine his life perfect as is?

    all of a sudden I’m fine being the wife with the glowing phone with the guy who flys planes or saves lives or plays in a band and makes shit money it doesn’t matter because his lips show his gums when he smiles and i get lost in his eyes trying to find out his fate and if I’m in it his jeans are ripped it was an accident skating surfing skiing driving with white knuckles because he gets nervous around me how much is the weighted blanket of his heartbeat that covers me in childish warmth I’d spend forever melting in the couch just to have him steal my breath for a second longer he takes a shower and already smells expensive like commitment and yet still cheap like a puberty crush it’ll put you back in the middle school hallways when you rediscover that feeling of finding a boy attractive again about ten years later at 23 basketball baseball football i hate sports but i could play with him forever with those ripped baggy jeans and the thin t-shirt from an era i didn’t know him from i want to rub my face on it exactly how my cat does to me in the morning when he misses me even though i was there the whole time was he there for me the whole time will he be there for me when he’s not even mine i think he was always in the back of my mind because his tattoos are etched into my memory as if they are the folds in my brain and i like to imagine our hearts beating to the same melody like a song my recycled soul used to sing when she first fell in love that now she sings in the car alone thinking about what love is going to be like now that she’s capable of accepting it

    I’m not a wife yet I can’t honestly imagine what that would look like because at heart I’m the girl with red lipstick high heeled boots being shy on purpose old fashioned with cherry juice lots of it and hope that it tastes tarte so you’ll slip into a hazy sleep and have lazy sunday with a sore throat from a selfish cigarette that you stepped on after finishing with your friends with sticky shoes from gross clubs and a guy you knew for five years (5 hours) till he smiles for too long and you wonder if you made the mistake of getting ready for him I hate that feeling that devoting my femininity to men by taking extra estrogen to make sure their mistakes are forgiven by science and not religion it’s like a reward to earn your womanhood back once he drains you of your gentleness because when it is over you care again about proving him wrong and having nice bras and doing face masks whitening teeth lash serums jergens self-tanner using fresh towels with a clean robe after scraping your skin clean with razors and brushes I value my effort more when I’m alone instead of with a man who expects more of me anyway because he grew up with a mommy with red nails and a daddy who flew planes so I’ll walk around in high heeled boots and a push-up bra with my hair bouncing toes painted eyelashes touching my eyebrows and smiling big because he said he loves the color red and that it reminds him of his mom like why are you looking at my lips and thinking of your mother and why am i looking at him thinking about rest of my life battling eternity with a stranger just for an hour of an unheard conversation and silly time-limited attachment

    I’ll get my nails done with Alexa and ask her if red is a good color and we’ll consider the way planes hold all this weight but are skinny enough to split the sun so selfishly and how much better we feel when summer comes around because we can spend more time in her backyard drinking red wine and talking about our pets as if they’ve spoken english to us and I’ll daze off into psychological oblivion thinking about how my favorite thing is this world is to be a girl and be girls with other girls simultaneously and be girls with boys who recognize my femininity and don’t want to take it from me by handing me their clothes like a coupon for 40% decreased effort the next time you see them or buying me drinks as an exchange for a great (literally cant hear you) conversation next to an ear-splitting set by a sixth street DJ about tech sales and how his dad flies planes and it fucked him up by not seeing him as often so he love his mom and women-alike out of pity and “so do you want to take this somewhere else?” “if you tell me what my name is I’ll consider it” hop in the uber and go to the place that smells like you and wake up to the peeking sun and the cat whose scratching you to see if you’re still alive because they love you.

    I was listening to “Pretty Boy” by the Neighborhood and he talks about Devon so gently that it made me think about all the love I’m a witness to, the love I can’t wait to experience, the love I discount or take advantage of on a daily basis, and the love that I once thought was love but am now smart enough to know that’s a misrepresentation of words (like … toxicity or projection). Everyone my age is so worried about maintaining love, finding love, keeping love even when it hurts… I guess this is an American thing, to believe we have to work and earn things. We live in a scarcity mindset, when life has proven to us so many times that we are capable of almost anything – so why do we feel like we aren’t capable of something so genetically-disposed like love? If you’re imaginative – you’ll find love somewhere in between some drunk guys slurred words or on sunny days or when your cat blinks at you slow or in an airport for a quick second in a guy you fantasize about living with (because why not).

  • wabi-sabi windex

    I clean my mirrors down to a clear image, being sure to treat it carefully because it shows a reflection of me. At my most desperate times, I would get up from my sunken warmth to look into that mirror and see a deserted mind. I would walk back and forth in the mirror in some socially relevant outfit to make sure the heels could last through the night. I hate being perceived, but I need you to perceive me in order to understand that it’s okay to be a million different things at once. I carry my cat to the mirror and see if he knows what a reflection is. As of recent, I tend to stare at the mirror just to disappear within myself. Kind of like how you stare at someone you think you might love. Hmmm. I look back at the reflection just now recognizing it’s alive, again, just older now and considering that I’ll devote my life looking after the younger versions of her. It’s so funny too, because I feel like the younger versions of myself had only worried about the older versions: writing down a list of hobbies in case I forgot to have free time. With all this worry, I’m worried that no one is worried about the one who is presently doing the worrying. Should I tap on the glass and remind her?

    Anyways, hello. I haven’t talked to you in a while. Life is a lot. Everybody needs you, then nobody needs you. Wake up the sun is going down. Stand up, you did too much, just sit down. Only open your mouth until you know what’s coming out of it. Want to see Nirvana but I don’t want to die yet. Want to hear God but she won’t speak to me yet. Want to be me but I can’t figure her out yet. Still. Ugh. I’m too extreme – wanting to know what scratches the deep parts of people’s brain and asking why they won’t tell me more about myself. We’ve only been dating (never been on a date) for two days, can you tell me what you see? It’s okay, I look at myself and reduce it to what I pay to keep it alive sometimes. A single bed and single bath. In the middle of a place I didn’t grow up but made home and consider running away from again. A concrete block built in 2017 to shove someone into for the corporate earning, for that person to work for the corporate earning, and live life completely yearning for more growth.

    If I grow: is my reward a house, a backyard of sand, and a dog your cat hates who can run in said backyard? Do I also get a boy who I fear I love too much? I found it easy to lose the love I had for myself by finding it in other people, at least the version of them that lives in my head. Oh to have your feet warm and to feel your head rise with the silent breaths of that boy you agreed you loved the same as yourself. Kids (maybe) who have your eyes and similar insecurities. The rushed plea to heal those insecurities before they discover them within themselves too. Rocking chairs and road trips where you look at the clock enough to obsess over the memory of you sitting on your couch in your first apartment alone, wondering if it became true.

    Hi. I haven’t met you yet, but I think about you all the time. I bet you have the same emotional dispositions, yet have become perfectly satisfied. You have my wrinkled eyes and insecurities that you are secure about. Nirvana is a state of being. God created the idea of being. How is it being, being you all the time? A silly thing about the universe is that it gives us the opportunity to imagine that scenario (manifest), live the scenario (look you made it), and take advantage of the scenario (what’s next). We spent most of our time imagine ourselves in different scenarios when really all you we doing is guessing ignorant bliss. You must learn how to keep walking with uncertainty; to avoid spoiling the universe’s gift by trying to guess the next one.

    Sometimes it’s exhausting for me to do the work to feel like myself again you know. I do something “so bailey,” and I contemplate for a few days why the action is so reflective of me. “Bailey is the type of girl to call boys beautiful or pretty.” Everyone won’t stop talking about doing the work and the amount of water you need and the early bird that needs to get the worm too. All you do is experience and heal and experience and experience because you healed once and that one mental breakdown you always mention when you’re drunk has become your shortcut to an easier life… however, you will still wake up with a hangover and think “I thought I worked on that already.” lmaooooo

    I’ve accepted that I will never stop healing. It’s because I will always want to keep experiencing.

    Do I have to keep treating my inner child and future self differently when they all look like the same reflection? Even if we don’t see them happy, we have this infinite imagination to picture them being that way. The body keeps score, but the mind always wants more. You’re existing between a perfect plateau of experience, so specific in showing microscopic milliseconds worth of highs and lows and leaps and bounds in growth. And why do we grow? The universe is expansion, you are the universe. Keep growing through the minutes. Stop growing up too fast. Is it too late or did we take a different route? I hate this road, and this car keeps getting older, and the billboard in the rearview said “nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.”

    The universe sends us exactly what we are ready for at the exact time we need it in our lives. I truly believe that, it’s like the only thing I devote myself too – like a thesis for life. I wouldn’t be 23 if I didn’t mention that it also sends us exactly who we need, and it takes them away. It sends us exactly who we need when we didn’t know they were coming back too – which makes you question if it’s up to you to heal or if the universe will force you to do it anyway. Ignorance is bliss, to live is to find bliss, so why do we try to find so many meanings to something so intricately simple? Being is easy, living is harder. In the most wabi-sabi way, I’m trying make peace with the emptiness at the core of human life by overfilling it with so much happiness.

    To live with the universe is a treasure, genuinely. Maybe I’m just a to get emotional about how lucky are we to learn each other, and love each other, and kiss each other, and feel each other, and see a glimmer of humanity in each other. To connect with the universe through other people and find that same humanity in yourself. To look into the same souls you forgot to remember again, until you do remember them again, and realize you will never forget them. God I miss you already, always. To people who I’ve seen experience all emotions, to people I hold hands with, to people who let me the opportunity to count their pores, to people who I’ve listened to sigh, to the greens and blues of the world living in black and white.

    Put both of your hands out and grab the hand of your youth and the hand of the oldest you. How critical it is to balance yourself within the present and not have them drag you back and forth. I look in the mirror about a month later (now) and feel complete knowing that I’m a balance of so much unknown and too much known. Being the same girl I’ve carried through life, I guess with some over-saturated soul that will last me past this lifetime. Time is limited and yet endless, take it in by second and heal everlong.

    I wrote this because I was cleaning my mirror. Do you ever just sit and stare at yourself, not because you’re doing your makeup, but you can’t believe you’re alive? You like wait … it’s not just me, it’s the universe (at least, just 5’4” of the universe). Adding to what I said in the last blog: although there are so many versions of yourself you have yet to meet, try not to forget about the one living now.

  • kill bill

    My name’s Bailey Champagne. I’m 23 years old, and I work for a living at a job. I have a bedtime of 11pm on a good day, 2am on a really good day. I have a cat who is now one- I think that makes 15 in cat years. I live in Austin, I used to see myself here forever, I’m not sure about that anymore or about anything- other than the next day maybe. Being alone in your college apartment is comforting. Being alone in your apartment that you pay for is necessary, complete with a personal rebrand and a cat that cries for its dinner. I have a sister, who knows Bailey best other than my parents. I’m the oldest child of two, the standard for which my sister separates herself from maturely. You can hear my dad in my humor, I have to thank him for that. You can hear my mom in my advice, I have her to thank for that. You can hear Billy when Bailey fails, and I loathe her for that.

    Billy was born from drunken slurs of men trying to say my name but never held intention to understand my words clearly. She was, is, relevant to an inner child but more reliant on self-destruction for social acceptance. She spoke through bat shit eyelashes, whatever she could mutter replicating the same speech of those who named her. She was quite skilled at sneaking drinks from willing pocketbooks and witty personas. She was a liability for the guilty behaviors Bailey wouldn’t claim as her own. The chaotic fun girl who squeezes her body through crowds just to find a table to stand on. To lock her knees and scream “accept my crazy, but in a chaotic fun girl way”. The crowd would stretch my arms so far that upon rebound I was a wrinkly fetus of who I saw reflected in mirrors.

    I don’t think people pay attention to me enough to see me squeeze my body through the crowd, feeling so uncomfortable between the sweat of slurring men and vulnerable girls. I struggle more to find an expensive car with unknown driver, even though I wanted to leave early anyway. I fob myself through the gate and finally feel my chest lower once I slip into the silent depression of an unmade bed. I get up, I’ll lay around, and I’ll get up, and lay back down. This season of singleness, there’s no place like watching my life pass through the comfort of a broken-in room. The silent and sobering Bailey wakes up from her nightly death to find Billy’s fandom fatal ego reborn. Window to the phone. I’ll wake up and make plans, because that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re scared that you might be depressed.

    Bailey is at a point of realization of identity, again, always now a days. I guess that’s a thing that happens at 23, when you work from home and feeling like you’ve been at home since the pandemic began when you were 20. I felt so young when I behaved 23, now I’ve grown into a tall child with mild anxiety and wild performance syndrome. The perfect balance of my light femininity and love of the deep dark stuff, all wrapped up in an oxymoron of a smart human.

    To think of it, I’ve always been into the deep dark stuff. Let’s just say that’s the scorpio in me. The guilt behind asking for advice, the halt of emotions after the action is over, the rush of contemplating an explanation for said action and professing opinions like you’re running for office (or from yourself). Campaign for Champagne just like I posted around for fifth grade politics. It’s a rush to scratch the deepest part of your wounds and realize you have the same evolutionary evidence as someone else, mentally that is. I like to think that Billy is part of that dark stuff, but as much as I can convince myself- I cant accept the fact how shallow she is. She pretends to drown herself in order for someone to realize she wants help compared to Bailey, who fights daily to float above it all. In fact, I’m so used to holding my nose and stretching my socially wrinkled arms to reach the edge of the pool. Being at a party and feeling like an open wound, all the people ask if I’m going to put a bandaid on it. Bailey would nod, Billy would scream.

    I guess “Billy” (which if you haven’t caught on, is a big metaphor for my party persona) is the offspring of the child who never asked for attention but received it anyway, but who instead demands attention as if it’s an earned prize. In some way, like all fun friends, Billy was a liability. In another way, she’s greatest pool float I could find when Bailey was holding her nose and trying to stay afloat like a wrinkled fetus. It was an identity that felt needed to remain active in order to feed Bailey’s damaged identity from seeking other approval, outside of herself, because Bailey is always (say it with me) going to find it on her own anyway. She’s a sort of dissociation that allows me to show others I’m worthy of performative socialization, temporary flirtations, or validating secretive motivations. Break her down a bit more and you’ll find Bailey asking you to lay by her.

    Billy is sure an alter ego – who mirrors my insecurity of feeling like social praise is a reward, mostly in confronting events. The outspoken Bailey, the chaotic Bailey, the good at fun Bailey all wrapped up in some entanglement I created to eliminate the processing of minute responsibility. When you suffer from seasonal depression, or you process events the way a rollercoaster rolls, you kind of form these imaginary motivations to avoid the seatbelt from releasing at the top of the hill (healing is a life long ride, buckle up). I understand that I never felt accepted enough socially to stand on this table in my given name and lock my knees to say “accept my crazy, but in an empathetic and innocent way”.

    And this is all to say that, Billy and Bailey are much the same – she is me and my honest imagination after all. To dismiss Billy is to assume she isn’t of my own creation, an act to deny myself of further acceptance for the parts of me I may feel uncomfortable or too comfortable with about. She is the crutch to an injury I may have inflicted: the smiling angel face to a gut punch of demonized anxiety. The cheerleader, the performer, the mirrorball and all. Let me admit we have a duty to ourselves to embrace our singular selfs, the duality of ourselves, the multiple parts of ourselves that make us ourself.

    I hope if you struggle with identity, you find some relativity in this. I found myself blaming Billy for things Bailey did, in a bad way. I found myself laughing at things Billy said when it came out of Bailey’s mouth, in a good way. This is a long way to say at the end of the day, I am okay. If you suffer from seasonal depression, avoidance of said emptiness until it overwhelms you, I found that the part I once understood as distraction was actually my greatest therapy. That’s through savoring my connections, a worn discrepancy between what I thought Billy favored but truly a deep necessity for Bailey to have to feel supported, loved, human, grounded. The window will be there to watch when you come home and the phone will be there when you wake up to set up tomorrows plans. Just give yourself grace, there are so many parts of yourself you haven’t met yet.

    Seriously though I am very happy.

  • airplane food

    Going to Germany. Well, as I’m writing this I’m on the way there. Everyone was excited to hear I’m going, and they tried to pass some of their emotions through the phone via change of tone, but I couldn’t become excited. Why the fuck am I not excited? I’m very fortunate that I’m wanted, needed, enough to have to make the day trip to visit.

    I’m shaking at the airport from anxiety. I’m not very well traveled, it’s a new thing in my life. It was once a thing that was pinpointed as my downfall, almost shoved in my face, being a homebody by default development. For a while, I would wake up to the start of a movie I’ve seen before though all days come to a perfect conclusion- one that you know how it ends and how it begins again. How lovely it is to be rained upon by sweet nothing, that a predictable day is the pit of your depression. To be missed (by my cat mainly) with intention of goodness and not for salacious reasons because we’ve all moved on (i’m a free agent, let’s do it). To be shaking in an airport not because you’re scared of airplane food but because I’m terrified of where my mind going to go for 10 hours. You won’t believe the amount of times I researched quotes about “jumping over the boundary of fear” and “all great things are the on the other side of being uncomfortable.” Mumbling to myself cliché words in an airport reminding myself to stay grounded while being one of the highest in the air.

    On a normal day, I can’t help but to distract myself with tik toks to shorten my span for a minute. I look away from conversations that last longer than thirty minutes. Oh to be stuck in a drunken hometown bar living scenarios I’ve played in my head twice over for more than a few hours. I get off the plane that lasted a bit longer than ten hours just to see that no one has sent me a tik tok (pitiful), started a conversation (awh), or drunkenly typed out something they regret the next day (i wish).

    I tell my friends that I really don’t mind being alone, yet I yearn for them today to assure me that I’m not. I’m fine with being alone, for a while it was my preference, the time before that I couldn’t think about my next breath before that someone reminded me. Sometimes I replicate that idea of someone, being the sad girl who just dreamt of being the girl I am now, just as an excuse for poor present behavior. Maybe I relive my healed trauma for the sake of experiencing emotion that takes me out of my healed, dissonant contentment.

    Is there something to be hungry for when your plate is already full? Am i so starving to the point that I’m just used to this empty stomach feeling? Staring into an abyss of algorithms, staring through the person explaining to me how they operate, them staring at me and seeing the girl I still don’t quite understand yet. What do you think of her? Is she worthy of a swipe, a quick smile across the bar, a friendly hug paired with a “How is your mom doing?”, a glimpse of her getting into the car with someone else, an explanation of how you can’t seem to pay attention to her more than you can a football game or the girl pouring your next at that hometown bar?

    I’m still on this flight, thinking about how I’m hungry for something but I can’t understand to admit who… I meant what. One thing about me is that I’m too creative. Before you spend your time giving a response, which could be my reward, I’ve already pictured the conversation we will have the next ten hours. How is it so far? Jet lag is a bitch, but damn you’re just as exhausting. Why aren’t you hungry? Have I fed you enough? What if I put it in a 60 second loop enough to make it last for the rest of our years together? Keep scrolling for content. I’ll be sure to provide it.

    I’ve been watching Friends on the dash of stranger adjacent of me. I cant hear the sound, but I’m picturing what their mind is reacting to in real time. I know people are doing the same to me. I bet they’re guessing my age shorter than a few years, picturing me waiting to text some guy that I made it safe, that I’ve traveled enough to know the exact plane model and meal they’ll serve me. I’ll choose a movie that they’ll expect me to watch, some American feminist she is watching Little Women and not crying at the part where she denies Timothee Chalamet but wipes tears when the main character runs away from it all. We’re much more alike than I want to be.

    I had multiple thoughts on this trip of running away and becoming an anomaly, my true yet completely false essence. I walked around the town at night and said thank you in different languages to see their reaction; do they know I’m the foreign one? I’ve imagined myself being a pinpoint on the globe and having my friends scroll to Europe to find me independent of their time. I’ve prepared my responses for them in advance when they ask how it was.

    Before this trip, I only asked what I could give, when really all I need was to be fed myself. Were you starving? I actually just ate. I opened my arms and received as much (metaphorical/actual) food as I could. The waiter put his hand on my back and we walked through the cobblestone and he asked if I ate well. I was so full that night. I looked around the city with this man’s hand on my back, and I realized that I actually was always full. I am SO full that I poureth my cup until it drips over onto the counter to the floor and got my feet wet. My feet are wet, your socks are wet, and here I WAS asking YOU if you would like more water. Asking people to participate in my communal drowning for the sake of not feeling alone in my quarter-life crisis. Here, I became satisfied.

    In fact, I assume that position so much of others that it’s way easier to talk about the struggles of my generation than to have a ten-minute elevator pitch of who I am and what I do over dinner with whomever I’m trying to impress. Just get to the good stuff before my stomach starts growling. I guess that’s the point of being in a foreign country. You don’t really have time to cater to others, and you really are stripped to your basic needs until your feet are dry and you can walk around confidently knowing you are the inside the mind of the outsider (over thinker, under appreciated, equally oblivious).

    I’m coming to terms with the fact that allowing people and experiences and culture to share their portions with me is why my plate is full. Or at least, that’s why I want it to be full. Not full of empty thoughts of who I will be in a year, what her occupation will be, how will she make it through the day without becoming the person whose kids ask her when dinner is ready.

    I’m on the returning flight looking straight forward at my own dash. I look through the movies and imagine what it would be like to be in my own bed, in my own apartment, in my own shared city of people who moved to get away from everyone who’s plates were empty. No one knew I was on this flight, I didn’t want people to ask me questions just yet. I wanted to enjoy the simplicity of having a perfect cup full of fulfillment and a plate complete with white sausage and Moroccan waiters who get paid a living wage and Prosecco at hotel bars with people who address you as “Ms. Champagne.” I really loved the persona I built over this trip, until I realized I was the one who created it. I’m the one with a cleaner closet, the one with the personality to want conversation with people she doesn’t know, and to embrace the mystery she finds in herself. That’s so cheesy.

    When I would walk away from a counter, I know I was being noticed for my accent. I liked being noticed in a foreign country, at least the positive side of it like getting discounts at places or giving tips to waiters like they don’t expect. I think of if I reminded them of someone, or if they imagined my life being completely different than what it is in reality. When my flight back was, if I even had a ticket, or if there was a guy waiting to text me when I land, or if I was the American type of feminist that agrees with the politics of her state.

    As soon as the plan wheels touched gravel, that LONG flight, my cup shakes a bit and my food falls over. It’s empty, and all of a sudden I’m filled with the urge to experience it all over again. Instead of asking others to make me full again, I have wait to get back on the aisle seat and see what will fill it. Go somewhere else other than my grudge of a room that I imagine my self melting away in. Talking with strangers and buying their art from the side of the road and asking them what their mom made them when they were little and touching ancient architecture and realizing WE ARE ALL THE SAME AND THERE ARE MORE OF US OUT THERE!

    In simple, just for the sake of giving an unscripted response, it was amazing. It was exactly what I needed. To be alone, without knowledge or understanding of culture, to be a fly on the wall and have so many people guessing where I bring my buzz to. To be the center of attention in my mind to the point that I distort my perception of other peoples perceptions of me. People watching to a psychological, slightly mentally ill (the fun kind), extent.

    If I got anything out of this trip, it was the allowance of ignorance and being blissful to things I don’t quite understand, even my own emotional depth. Realizing that I love being a fly on the wall so much that also I’m worried no one will notice me. Allowing myself to indulge and become full of other people instead of being so full of myself and my quest to solve life all the time. Finding out that it gets dark early over there, the food is better, and that you much prefer the 4-hour dinners with sparkling water and wine from next door rather than the boring drive through with five dollar boxes. There were lots of things I took from this trip. I indulged in it all.

    This may explain why I’ve been absent for a while. I’m actually happy, maybe a little too inspired, waiting for another adventure that’s in the form of a person place or thing. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to go overseas, to have a job that allows me to work with people and know people who live a life different than me, and to have the urge walk alone in a different country and become a little more satisfied not following a path popularly traveled to find my own sense of individuality.

    I mean come on, Germany was amazing. I was in a huge life rut before then, dedicating time to wrong individuals out of boredom and being revived by beer and roasted pumpkin.

  • mirrorball

    I move apartments this week. Nothing too major of a move, only 15 minutes from where I spent three years and maybe 25 from where I started. I’m losing the comfort of a home I spent four years making in exchange for the person I’m evolving into. I grew out of this place and the deconstructed roads that my car bears scars from. I grew anxious waking up to the same painting I bought discounted and is way too colorful for my taste. An empty room holds a crowd of reflections of that girl who was just simply growing up. Through a pandemic, she sat alone staring at the TV watching the election that could bring chaos to her neighboring areas. Through a flood, she threw together a small box and a manila envelope labeled “important documents” with her fathers handwriting to her neighbors house- now also vacant. Through an ice hurricane, she ran her heating bill too high knowing someone else would be taking care of that charge. Through friends she grew out of, friends she grew up with, she’s a jagged tapestry of experiences and interactions she hopes someone new would want to lay down and get freckled in the sun. The thing that I’m stuck on the most is the newness of it all. The stark smell of packages don’t wear my pheromones, instead a smell of cardboard much like a teacher moving classrooms. Except, I have little to teach and a whole lot more to learn. It would be funny to compare myself to that wall I stared at every morning for the past few years, until all of those years become the final night. I guess now I’m blank and bearing the scratches and holes of the decorations I never assumed to become semantic or worthy of emoting for. Those pieces are in a new place, waiting to be hung in a different way. Carried from a home to a dorm to an apartment to a place those other places were meant to set me up for. Nothing is me, at least quite yet.

    I’ve been here for a month or so. In my bedtime monologue, I kept wondering if I’m stressed or not. The weekend gets closer and my mood changes, dreams more focused on having my plans together during free time rather than the bought time I sold myself to make a living for. Sometimes (only a few times), I find myself holding my head with my camera off seeing how full my lungs can get until I let out the most unsatisfactory blow of anxiety. I run out of breath, especially when stressed, and I hate the feeling of drowning from littered responses. I’m fresh out of the water, being perceived as the fresh out of college girl who is optimistic and excited and not bound to responsibility (her parents probably pay for everything still) (they don’t) when really it‘s the personality pack the corporation finds interesting to keep. I’m what they expect me to be, I’m glad I’m what they want me to be, I’m glad that I’m me throughout the whole thing. Actually, I am the most focused and inspired I have been, but I am scared to become blind through the layering drops of water that narrows between my eyes, blurred between outlook lines and meeting times. Stakeholders and goals and budgets and morning meditation meetings you never make because you’ll talk to them in an hour anyway for something more relative to your concerns. You never really outgrow the achievement complex the college institution created you with. I’m just scared that I’m becoming one with the institution now, just a stereotype and constantly proving myself to stakeholders that I am more than a bright eye and bushy tailed 22 year old, still trying to find the difference between us all. And maybe there isn’t, but I hope I’m able to retain this excitement and optimism and fear that I will lose those things. Maybe in a decade or so. In a funny way, this is the most me I’ve ever been. Blind to the recognition I already receive because it’s nothing special, just nice.

    I grew up in a town where people came home miserably rummaging the back of their fridge for a bud light. I went to a college where students find more validation in LinkedIn likes than good grades, because those are expected but social praise is an additional reward. I’ve always been a hard worker, but through successful advances to pursue career, I felt awkward. I pictured myself 45 and miserably reaching for whatever beer is left from my last gas station visit and scrolling through Facebook. Coming home to check the mail full of bills and complaining to my significant other that we need to do better. It’s a very masculine approach to take considering that if in fact I do have a family, my inability to maintain a work life balance would also affect my children’s care, or even worse- my sanity. I’m not sure how single girls my age fantasize about marriage, being given away by their father as if there’s a land contract involved in the marital transaction. Nowadays, it’s all I hear about. It’s all I’m asked about. It’s all that anyone ever mentions to me. It’s all anyone ever tries to get out of me. Between spilled drinks and slurred words, I revisit members of the past in my mind and consider plan b. In those moments, they are definitely plan a. In sobering moments, it’s me in a remote location with a rotating direct deposit. In an ultimate way, none of those are me.

    I guess this is where I draw a line between 1. perception of self 2. desire of self to be 3. perceptions I’ve adopted from others and 4. desire to be something else. The problem is that I have no way to understand the difference. I think I’m someone who finds it easy to romanticize life. I spend a lot of time thinking, which is a consequence of having to rely on technology for communication without much effort. I think about how my body tossed around all night for me to wake up increasingly more comfortable in the morning, how I have such an affiliation for writing when it takes an academic requirement or insecure attachment for me to read a few lines of text, or even how one ingredient can change the taste of a meal and I know I screwed it up with the salt this time. By default- this makes me a hopeless romantic for anything. it’s just a thing that impacts the self-reflections of myself that make purpose out of novel tasks. I’ve always said that I hate being perceived and limited, but really I just love being perceived as unlimited. Secretive, mysterious, sometimes way too open and revealing. Casual, urgent, sarcastic but serious. I like to think all of those things are me.

    I think my hope is that I’m everything they want me to be, just so I can go to sleep at night without pre-meditating my dreams with a decade of experiences ahead of me. I see it very clearly, on the front porch scratching my heels into the chipped paint of the floorboard. I want to be the girl being chased in the field of flowers. He wants me to be that girl too, but I get too tired chasing after a sun that’s already set- barely energized to make it but comparatively more enthusiastic about waiting for it to rise again. I want to be the girl at the bar who orders the same vodka cranberry as the next girl, but when she does it- it’s cool. At that point, I’ve already committed to an all night investment of creating the most chaotic storyline for memory purposes (if memory can handle it) and rummaging through potential plan a’s. I want to be the leader with glasses and free-styled speech, casually mentioning clauses just like they’re written in business textbooks. They know me as someone who is learning to be that girl, coupled with the reality of stuttered pauses and a very gen z way of literally, actually, maybe, like. It’s hard to be truthful to reality when all you are focused on is desire and dreams. Feeling grounded but still reaching above reality- it’s all very me.

    Working with people who have the majority of it figured out gives me the impression that I too have it figured out. In a very deep way, the struggles I have are evolutionary bindings between me and the versions they once knew themselves as. I’ll show them every version of themselves between 9-5, being that shiny mirrorball of a fresh face. After hours, I am simply the daydream of a girl I imagine myself to be instead of the physical representation of every bright eyed and bushy tailed 22 year-old fresh out of college corporate female. So there it is. Finally, I am different- at least in my head and on the other side of the coin. The difference between me and the rest of my simulated corporate entanglement: resisting numbness. Allowing myself to be painted as colorful, excited, decorative with many labels similar to those that were gifted to me in much more societal-binding contents like college. Those pieces are in a new place, now hung in a different way. A jagged tapestry carried from a home to a dorm to an apartment to a place those other places were meant to set me up for. For now, it’s placed in an weirdly lighted cubicle made comfortable again by my daydreams during day shifts. A trapeze artist balancing growing maturity and accepted immaturity. It takes a bit for me catch my balance sometimes that’s all, but the performance itself is still beautiful, it’s still me, and once the meeting ends it all goes still.

    This was written in a span of a month, between new places and a new job, a very exciting job. It’s a very pivotal time in my life, and it was a response to feeling different from the majority of the very impressive people I work with. And if you get anything out of this, I hope you find this short essay entertaining and at best relatable. Short note: I love my job, but all simulation shifts can be stressful to manage. Also, sorry for not writing sooner. It’s funny how when I only write when I feel awkward with myself. It’s a very me thing to do.

  • plastic grass, roses, & trees

    graduated and finally celebrated, i anticipated being met in this achievement. i felt like the awkward kid who hung around the high school after they graduated, poking fun of people a year younger than them and acting as if the teachers were their drinking buddies. for this reason, i was jumping for my friends at the finish line and could barely stand with waving hands to collect theirs and continue the marathon together. i stand still now realizing that they’re running a much farther distance than i am, being that their goals are too big for me to witness for myself. hoping that their silhouettes won’t become faded as they pace greater distances, hoping my back still shines against the sun, and hoping that they look back and see me smiling at them from 10 miles away, 4 hours away, states away.

    despite all, still a call away. i hate that phrase. in a moment of months- telling yourself that stupid phrase- you look at the reflection in the rearview and see no one in the backseat. before, it was books we bought together, champagne she left from our sleepover, and soaking wet clothes he let me borrow after spending the whole day getting wrinkled from water. instead now, they only exist below the mirror, propped on a makeshift phone stand screaming through shaky connection on FaceTime. maybe you’ll be able to configure some loose plans or excuses to visit. those plans may fail, and you will give each other grace because you know that if they call, you can’t decline it this time because every call after this moment is practiced effort for the strength of the friendship we grew years prior.

    i wonder if this is what my parents felt when i left home. accepting the heartbreak of missing someone while knowing they’ll be back through the door hinges, welcoming new people and stories and moments you weren’t there for but wished you were. in this case, we were the ones who built this home, an unrelated family of related opinions and desire for closeness, and i am watching it slowly burn in the background like that apartment next to the one we met in. we can watch it burn together, since we’ll all find a new place to be from anyway. hard to admit, but i’m too focused on making sure everyone has made it out alive so we can still have a foundation to return to. one that a graduate degree, a doctorate degree, a whatever, can afford.

    and i know they will make it uninjured, but without them here with me, i am scared that i will also just crumble and burn. i haven’t been too welcoming to change that has been initiated by others, ever. i grasp onto branches so tightly that i have to climb higher up the tree, always, hoping it’s strong enough for me to grab their hand like i want and plea to keep them with me. the pain of missing something or someone like a memory is guttural, psychologically similar to heartbreak but lined silver with sheer hope. just make it out alive, and i will be here fostering our new idea of friendship like the one we shared at the blueberry house and built at that now empty apartment.

    i have the dashboard view of our memories on that balcony, driving past to seeing wrinkled books on the plastic grass and empty cups of water. instead of looking backwards at the rearview, i’m forced to focus on the road ahead of me, just as we agreed when we met at the finish line. will the road be too hard for us to remind each other of each other? to let each other know that we are okay? to admit we aren’t? looking through the dash, the billboard said, “the end is near.” when i turn around to look at the road behind me, i can only hope that there no one there- instead, the end has passed and a new beginning starts. the thing about overthinkers is that we will continue to debate our acceptance of change in hopes to receive better outcome. in my mind, there’s no better outcome than seeing you do the things you first told me on that balcony. different directions, similar roads.

    there’s a tree growing in that empty lot next to that empty apartment, between the crumbles of gravel from the house we worked so hard to build. one day, it’ll billow over a new house that has a stronger foundation. it’s roots build a complicated map that connects the places we’ve littered with beer and tequila, hugs and tears, loud words and peaceful silence. as long as we water the tree, it will continue to grow. over time, it will bring shade to sunny marriages, it will shake when kids scream and call me aunt, and it will listen to the whispers of the thoughts that become dreams that become actions.

    through “don’t talk about it” conversations, i was able to pull the branches hard enough to receive these words: it’s not about where you’re at, it’s about who you’re with. i’ve known this. i never really had a hard time making friends until college, well at first. i had everyone i could need growing up, and we could speak about it now like a trauma bond. having a handful, or two, of people who talked with the same accent or eat the exact creole foods as you or wore the same clothes you do because there are only a handful of stores located there. we were planted next to each other, literally, so when we did separate, our roots were too damn tight to pull away from each other- grounded through hurricanes and food deserts.

    to be fair, most of my deepest friendships came out of fate’s response. through mutual friends and neighborhood potlucks and repeated bar sightings. i have nothing to blame but my big mouth to fear loneliness enough to become brave enough to find familiar people in a strange place. i don’t remember how we met, and i hope i never have to think about how we may move on.

    one day, i’ll look up from my phone after writing this damn post and see my life. i love the idea that we are jagged tapestries of experiences and connections, moments of impact. i can’t wait to sit on that woven blanket while i watch new people (i told you over facetime but the connection was shaky) glue roses on a flatbed by that tree that still is growing after we all left. maybe you passed the same billboard, and you’ll look back at the dirt i dragged onto the floormat. maybe you’ll notice that your clothes smell like my lavender detergent after i washed the chlorine out. you’ll look at the tumbleweeds on the backroads we traveled and catch their luck exactly the way you taught me. the sweetest conclusion is knowing that you too have pieces of me to carry onto the next leg of the marathon. i just hope that when you get to the new place, you will look down at your phone to tell me that you’re seeing your life too.

    let’s not talk about it just yet though.

    this is a love letter to my friends who are taking farther roads to travel. i have an unfortunate tendency to grieve things before they occur, because when they do leave (physically), i’d rather not be unprepared (emotionally) to continue my race without them (metaphorically). yes this was a cheesy one, maybe a depressing one, or a ‘too metaphorical to understand’ one. find people who keep you grounded and hold onto them until you allow their roots to branch off.

    special regards to mercury retrograde, phoebe bridgers, and a four day weekend.

  • purgatory is closed

    this sunday is yet another annual return on sacrifices made during lenten season. usually, people give things up on ash wednesday and continue to omit those things and number of other things from their lives until easter. this season, i decided to journal everyday about how i identify religion. i have held many relationships with god, or the holy trinity, or the universe. at one time or another, i was/am in a religious relationship with three things, one thing, and everything.

    three things.

    i grew up insanely catholic, alike most of the people who developed back home. i guess we could say that it started at my baptism, the moment where the sin we were born with was reset, and i was granted the key to heaven if i were to meet death earlier than expected. i really enjoyed the chaos of being catholic, at least the community aspect of it. repeating prayers back to your parents so they could be recited during the weekly test at CCD. coming to class after school hours and hearing people talk so deeply about their concept of afterlife at a very young age. going back to school the next day as if you didn’t contemplate creation together the night before. looking forward to vacation bible school and water balloon fights and desserts your almond parents probably would not approve of.

    i think my opinion of religion changed when i began to question the routine of it. i remember distinctly a teacher saying that if you were to question if he was even real, or a possibility and this effort was met with nothing, then you were already damned. if you were lucky, you can spend time in purgatory reflecting on your mortal sins for permission to enter heaven. i remember that i walked out of class feeling absolutely nauseated, scared to talk to the person next to me in fear of judgment about the way i contemplated how life was written. was the catholic ego was just an attempt to collect tithes and dismiss culture? now that curiosity was an option, i had to hide the intrusive thought behind many ideas of tradition and teachings. i’m not even sure what the person meant when saying it, but it was the first time i allowed myself to interpret religious teachings.

    however, scared shitless through tradition, i had to fall way deeper into my faith. trauma dumping at confirmation retreats directly to the guys who sexually exploited my friends. confessing widely uncomfortable things to a man you have known since birth behind a partition. listening to women of faith describe celibacy while most girls in my class have already failed the task. being taught to desire marriage over love. crying to shrine of penance bread because you feel so guilty for things teenagers fall into naturally. sitting first pew hoping that everyone in your hometown recognizes your dedication to your faith. screaming into a pillow at night hoping that maybe if you asked loud enough, he will hear you. thinking about the afterlife so much that the present becomes an afterthought.

    i moved to austin, and i learned very quickly that you need to be curious in order to make friends, succeed in classes, and to form real opinions instead of relying on other people’s stated facts of life. i met people of different religions. i met people of different cultures. i met people of different languages. i still felt faithful, to a very robust nature, until i went to a younglife event out of curiosity. it seemed like a very safe place: people were talking about their weekend plans openly, they played loud music i heard on the radio and not in a gospel book, and they wore whatever they wanted. that was the only time i went, only because i felt ten times more confused about what i was taught when my only intention was to gain more clarity.

    in college, my favorite thing to learn was cognitive psychology and development. i thought it was convenient how the most intensive religious education begins directly after our brains are drawn toward individualism, free-thought, and experimentation. right when are more inclined to explore creatively.

    now i’m sitting in a pew sophomore year for ash wednesday. i went alone, right down the street from the UT tower. in the middle of the service, i had to go to the bathroom and chug water from the sink because it became really hard to breathe when the priest looked directly at me. it was like he knew that i was lost, or that i didn’t want to be there, or that this was just a fulfillment of a parent’s holy assignment- take a picture of my ashes to convince them my mind was right, my faith was still there, and that i was still that god-fearing girl who never questioned him much like she did society. the blood tasted like wine, the body tasted like a cracker, and the girl left for one of the last times.

    one thing.

    junior year, i decided to take a writing credit course called “the bible and it’s interpreters.” i thought this would be my salvation, discussing christianity in a multi-cultural context with a teacher who speaks with a thick norwegian accent and was as kind as jesus himself. a few people in that class always introduced ideas by saying “as a catholic,” though i never felt comfortable to admit that i was one. not only did i feel that it was not necessary to announce every other minute, i did not feel comfortable talking to others about my awkward experience of what i knew church to be. the class was only intended to discuss historical context and not spiritual philosophy, and at one point i began to debate with the catholics using a hard bias of religious trauma. this peaked interest from those who joined the class for the historical context, varying religions and only present to learn about the origin of this huge religion. i finally felt comfortable talking to others about their religion. subsequently, i healed a lot of the shame i carried from my strictly catholic childhood by asking questions and considering that my idea of god was separate from religion and practices. maybe god had more than three names. if he has an abstract presence, how am i to assume that no one else experiences him.

    everything.

    i had to read a lot of scripture for this class, way more than i ever did in catholic school. now that i was held boundless for interpretation (compared to “this is what he meant by this, learn it and live it”), i began to form a beautiful understanding of what those words meant regardless if they were from god himself, by proxy, or some random dead dude in the middle east. god made everything in his own image, so he is the sky and the beaches and the dirt between your toes and the air that you breathe and the water you drink when you become nervous matching eyes with a priest who is guessing your motivations for appearing in church after so long. i didn’t want to associate myself with a god who punished curiosity, especially if he made our minds so free thinking. i didn’t want to associate myself with a god who restricted connection, because our mouths were made to speak to others with open ears. i didn’t want a god who shamed people for accepting the way in which they were created. i didn’t want a god who favored creations and allowed society to create a false narrative of supremacy.

    people don’t write books to dictate opinions. they write them to inspire.

    last week in a conversation about religion, someone told me that purgatory is closed (it was a joke… maybe). i think in this whole religious journey, which is a contemplation for many my age, i began to accept the universally unknown. i know everything happens for a reason, whether fate or god or being written in Bailey’s Chronological Life Plan according to Age dictates that (it’s probably all the same). i know that there is something that made us so individual and similar, despite whatever name we give to it (god is a good word for it).

    i know that belief makes life purposeful, even if that belief is contrary to those around you. i believe in energy and understanding motivations. in growing opportunities rather than constricting paths. in people and their psychological desire to find solutions to their curiosities. in guidance opposed to teaching. how experiences shape beliefs. how age boosts position and how those can be manipulated through ego. whatever you believe is yours, and thank god we have that freedom forever.

    now that purgatory is closed, i guess it’s finally time to start being good people! this concludes my lenten season contemplations. all that really matters is that you have your own relationship with whoever built you. if anything comes out of this, i hope you take your time to think about what you believe in. i’m glad i allow myself the space to do so, and speaking about it to my friends, myself, and the virtual abyss is more healing than intended.

  • cassie, jules & femininity

    In the most recent episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, the queens were presented with a main stage challenge of holding a panel discussion about men. I sort of found it robust, people (mostly male identifying people) dressed in a feminine illusion discussing toxic masculinity.

    The Gloria’s explain that racism and sexism are intertwined and both issues can’t be uprooted without the healing of the other. They’re engrained between the black and white lines we base our legislative proceedings on, highlighted in the new contracts from employers that make inclusivity a priority, and are rehearsed by politicians trying to snag the minority votes that distinguish the general population from white men. In regard to the relationship of toxic masculinity and empowered femininity, black women are more easy aware of bullshit in one form, and are able to identify it again in a different experience or event. Gay men and Trans women are more easily aware of bullshit in one form, and are able to identify it again in a different context. The issue is the bullshit, not the people experiencing it or speaking on it, unless it is socially determined that you have and will never experience such a thing because your birth rite contributes to the bullshit. It’s just the facts.

    According to a Google search, “The woman performs the role of wife, partner, organizer, administrator, director, re-creator, disburser, economist, mother, disciplinarian, teacher, health officer, artist and queen in the family at the same time. Apart from it, women play a key role in the socio-economic development of the society.” I mean, this literally took one second and my first question is why are women defined by Google, the other gender, and the state government, by their fertility? Before being an administrator, artist, or economist, you’re telling me that my purpose is to be a mother, wife, and partner first? In this context, women aren’t even considered to be creators but instead re-creators of (let me guess) male creations? If we’re stemming our purpose based on reproductivity, wouldn’t women be considered the hosts of the most valuable creation? This is an overwritten argument that requires more attention. I’ve allowed the space here for it, because the current state legislature ran out of it.

    Jules in a conversation with her therapist explains that she wants to get off her hormones because of the intensified gaze between both (and other) sexes. The men stare longer, and the women stare deeper, wanting to study the parts of her that make her more qualified to distract the male gaze from themselves. I like this plotline in Euphoria, because women are often held against each other like pageant contestants for male judges to look at and competitors to compare themselves to. Cassie manipulates this gaze that Jules speaks of by stealing her best friend’s appearance to win Nate’s affection more, when Maddy was the only one who understood his attraction to her to be rooted in trauma-induced narcissism and masculine dominance. Maddy also understands Cassie’s trauma-induced insecurity and need to use feminine submission to receive validation. He doesn’t like Cassie because of how easy the chase was, but he likes Cassie because the psychotic spiral to replicate femininity in a way that he historically supported boosts his ego. She doesn’t like Nate because of how hard he was to get- that would make his abusive language and behavior a reward- but because she correlates his attraction as validation. Pageant Princess Maddy understands the gazes- the one that comes from both spectrums.

    I am a woman, and I don’t often think about my position until it’s questioned or manipulated. I would love to share all of the bullshit I have heard trying to pave my way through work opportunities independently, yet I fear retribution this very day for it. Phrases that are etched into my brain, such as “Women don’t know how to ask for raises” (gaslighting) and “This job is homework for marrying a man in the same profession” (narcissism) are simply examples of said bullshit. I thought, since I live in Austin, it wouldn’t be as black and white as back home where men wear blue collars and women have done their homework to stay at home with the kids. Instead, it is behind a computer screen through Teams calls, or worse, in his new house on Lake Travis sipping wine and getting a tour of his racecar garage. Sexism in the workplace is very real and valid, and I shouldn’t have to dump my face in ice water to feel confident enough to speak up for myself during meetings where I have to defend my value.

    This may be controversial, but I think back to my psychology classes when discussing minorities. I’m in a unique position of experiencing high privilege being white and high disrespect being woman, and I often don’t know the routes to overcome conversations that require me to announce my obvious identities to avoid any assumed biases that my accent may carry. At necessary times, my womanhood was strung as a complementary adjective. At the worst times, I treated my femininity as such.

    I’ve always been a complex paradigm of hyper-feminine and tomboy. Practicing winged liner as if the post-pubescent boys on the field may notice it instead of my thigh-cutting varsity cheerleading mini skirt. Wearing a real bra during practices so no one would notice my obvious developmental delay in growth (I’m still waiting). Purchasing a longboard and sometimes riding it home from school in checkered vans and big t-shirts. Talking to dudes about UFC and how I was raised falling asleep to fight nights at my dad’s friend’s house and Bruce Buffer’s voice. Being cool enough for the guys to be a friend and taking care of myself enough – catching them off guard sometimes – so that foundational chemistry may turn me into some dream girl who straddles many images. Look I washed and folded your clothes! Yeah, I don’t mind hanging with your friends tonight… they like me right? Look at me, I put makeup on today! My favorite beer is Michelob or Dos Equis. This is the male gaze Jules talks about, it’s the behavior Cassie portrays, and it was the male-aligned femininity confused my identity as an empowered woman.

    An unevolved woman finds value through male validation. An unevolved woman finds value through female validation. What’s really sexy and attractive is being your own validation. Picking out clothes that remind you of yourself. Allowing your coworkers to see the person behind the corporate signature. Being an ally to others and yourself. Being nurturing, but being understanding that it’s not your position to be a mother to others. Buying flowers, wearing denim, being strong, and speaking up even if your face is dripping wet from ice water. Looking people in their eyes when they’re telling you a story you connect with. Doing things … while you’re bleeding! Writing notes to yourself and romanticizing your masculine handwriting. Seeing the paycheck come in and realizing that women (specifically, this one) knows how to ask for raises. Not marrying a lawyer just because you did your homework, or becoming the lawyer, or not marrying at all. Not hanging out with people you’re uncomfortable with. Drinking beer because you like beer and also tequila and white wine. All that matters is that my clothes are cleaned, my bills are paid, my cat is cared for, and my goals are being met without the validation from other genders. Owning your womanhood is the most validating thing you can do for yourself, and I think the women are catching onto this. Let’s see how long it takes the men.

    I feel more supported by the women in my life now rather compared to when we were lining up on the football field fighting for a look from number whatever, eagerly arriving to dance practice early to see what role you may have landed in the winter recital, or in between competitive conversations with orientation friends who came to college with titles hanging from their Kendra Scott earrings. Not that those were necessarily bad experiences, but we have to understand that sexism and toxic femininity are institutionalized. When we become cognitively aware of social cues in our development, we are subject to following the status quo. What they don’t tell you is that it is equally as dangerous to our development when we become cognitively unaware to disrespect.

  • passenger princess

    “love is patient, love is kind. love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. it does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”

    i have always reflected on this verse, so much that i questioned if it even heartbreak when it wasn’t love in the first place? are we capable of experiencing love without it even being love? are they just annual infatuations? what is a love letter without a denotation of desperation or hope this is it? what is the anxiety in hoping that your attempts will be matched, and if you’re lucky, with more than anticipated?

    alike most girls my age, or maybe not, we are obsessed with the idea of love. most girls of my generation were developmentally skewed by the idea that happiness is when the prince shows up and helps you down from a suffocating tower of isolation, or recognizes your worth once he realizes you look better with makeup on and a new hairstyle, or understands that you’re not just one of the boys who loves beer and watches sports… you’re his soulmate! a lot of the times, we don’t even recognize how impactful these early representations of happiness were. ever since our cognitive development allowed, we have been trained to understand that love equates to happiness through plastic tiaras and songs. we may not believe it now, and it’s obviously famous enough in the discourse of female love to have become a cliche, but before we could even form words- we were being taught that love is shown to us when our prince charming teaches us how to love ourselves. bullshit.

    at my age, girls go to bars, boys buy their drinks, girls think about what his parents look like or how he introduced her to his friends without hesitations, boys (at least the worst ones) wake up mad that they spent money on a girl who wouldn’t put out. girls go to coffee shops, boys make eye contact with girls, girls think about that interaction and romanticize how they’ll tell their children how he drank his coffee with whole milk the day they met. girls go to school, boys go to school, girl wears a calculated outfit that does not show much skin but just enough to be perceived as casual and cute, boys only notice girls with greek letters. girls post on instagram after editing their body for hours, boys like pictures, girls show notifications to their friends and don’t check the app for the rest of the day.

    this could easily be an autobiographical analysis about the love i did or did not receive when i was younger, but i like to believe it was our culture that promoted me to follow a romanticized life. girls (see above) are so primed to desire and secure love that it is often second thought behind our image. it is engrained behind every social media post, behind any interaction with an interest of attraction, and often times written in the unwritten step-stone of life accomplishments. love is not a goal to reach before you begin “aging” or reach past the point of unacceptable child-bearing age. because love is obviously not the young repetition of romanticizing sweaty dudes at bars or guys with their dogs at coffee shops or earning random social gratification from the desired interest, i am forced to believe, out of hope, that it is patient instead. i don’t think it will appear when you are starving or full, but only when you are perfectly satisfied with yourself that you allow someone to help you prepare the next meal.

    it is human nature that considers failure when we are not able to find an answer to things. millions of grant money to academic researchers to prioritize finding the solution to such a specific problem that the majority of the English speaking population would not understand the concept explained simply. hundreds of religions discrediting each others beliefs because of books written by bone-rotten ancestors who spoke languages non-transcribable to the generation directly after them. people being murdered, in streets, over seas, about who is right and who is wrong and your whole country should consider this right too because we segmented another portion of our federal defense budget and martyred too many of our own people to protect against anyone who thinks otherwise of our national priorities. i’m not saying that any of these scenarios lack passion, purpose, or love AT ALL. i’m saying that sometimes finding the answer is deadly serious, and complicated. as much as we want to convince ourselves that love can be murderous or manipulative- love is simply kind.

    i once always wanted a love that was hard so that it felt worth it, and i feel like a lot of women and men have to go through deep deprogramming to understand the balance between love and lesson. once a long (long long) time ago, i wanted a love that scratched the back of my brain so deep that every biological emotion would have a scar of their presence. i wanted a love that made me nauseated, for which i was able to confuse anxiety with utter excitement. i wanted a love so scary that my heart would stop beating and would only begin again when i heard my phone ring with a response. more than i would like to admit, i have sacrificed my own love for the sake of an unrequited one. calling friends endlessly to put my confusing collection of pieces together only for them to fall apart and have no assistance putting back together in the name of whatever i thought love was pre-maturely. part of maturing is realizing that love will not force you to sacrifice yourself for the sake of feeling any love at all. honestly, if you are at that point- that patient, kind love that i speak on is one that you should graciously dedicate to yourself, which is harder said than done.

    loving yourself is, actually, probably the hardest, which is why i believe we find the concept of love to be so difficult in essence. we live in a world of critique. we are graded among performance and ask our classmate what their score was while sharing that we made 10 points higher than we did in reality. hold our images next together through an algorithm where skinny bitches with long hair are triumphed above your edited perception of whatever you may look like on a good day. annually, the person who basically funds your living will pull you into an office and describe the things you did well on, evaluate if those things are worth a reward, and in the worst case, end your relationship to this once secure establishment of financial stability. this is a working process, and this is not the blog post for me to describe to you how to accomplish whatever the $450 billion self-care market claims to sell or replicate some Refinery29 article about how women compensate for inequality in their love lives and families due to institutionalized patriarchy (which is valid and true).

    learning how to love yourself, even in the instance that you believe that you are incapable of it, is the purest form of love there is. it is only a bonus if you get to share that love you have for yourself with someone else who believes it is worthy of celebrating, especially on valentine’s day. it’s also with your cat who is only able to rest on your chest so he can fall asleep to the sound of your heartbeat. it’s in the vulnerability between sharing a secret and it being accepted with unanticipated empathy. it’s in the stillness following that, lighting a candle and feeling how it’s smell consumes the space. in the texts that aren’t some guy just trying to see how far he can push your sexual boundaries. it’s accepting that although these moments are passing, they are yours.

    when i reflect on if i have ever truly felt love, going by these principles, i would be selfish to only use that in reference to past relationships. that one time he bought you flowers, or drove when you were asleep in the passenger, or whatever else you like to fantasize about rather than understanding the reality of love. and honestly, the reality of love can be painful. it requires you to learn the truth behind your insecurities, and why you feel the need to post pretty pictures every time a guy lets you down. it forces you to compare all the love you have received before and trust that you have healed from that shattering realization that those were just lessons a stupid, love-hungry girl refused to learn at the time. it’s creating boundaries and defending them, even though it is much easier to accept their instability at the cost of your peace. standing up for yourself, staying silent, willing to disagree for the sake of your morality or agree to keep peace, and so much more than it being considered simply. we are literally products of love, so why do we believe we are incapable of accepting or giving it? because we accept the love we think we deserve.

    I love the feeling of love, but love itself can be a risk. Sometimes it’s worth it to take the risk to feel loved, but would you do anything to simply be loved? It’s something to think about.

    i like to believe that we all have some form of love in our life, whether that is through ourselves, our friends, or even a romantic partner. if those Disney princess movies taught me anything, it’s that happiness and love are both exclusive and contextual. give love, make love, and show love for what it’s worth in your capacity because that’s all that you can promise yourself, even if it’s unrequited, not returned, or unacknowledged.

    if you are like me today, scrolling through posts of couples in love or whatever that means, prepping your 5 o’clock glass of sav cab, just know you are loved, regardless if you believe it or not. imagine you are someone who watches the news and sees several news stories of violence in your city. although your likelihood of being a victim of violence has not changed, the memory of violence in your city remains salient in your mind and makes you feel more vulnerable when leaving your home. the hate that exists in this world is much more salient than the love, but it is surely not more valuable.

  • seasonal depression

    it’s the damn season where solitude becomes the denominating activity, underlining nights of forced entertainment and poorly chosen outfits under 5 year old puffer jackets. i would rather just stay inside and watch the glow of the sun transfer into the warm lighting of my bedside lamp, where comfort is contained under my bedsheets and behind the blinding light of some Netflix series i begin over and over again for some grasp on familiarity. sunsets turning cold and younger while we’re getting old and older. much like the air, our attitudes turn crisp only remedied by burning smell of the heater and the jingle of your keys being thrown on the counter.

    i grew up in warmth, waking up to wet pavement when my expectations were of snow. i’ve never been skiing, and even in attempts i much preferred the calm ambiance of pot luck dinners and stale wine. there’s something exciting about the cold, expensive even in texas, in the way that ice baths are effective resources. meant to be enjoyed in tolerance. though on the other hand, i’ve always been the one to go swimming when the pools not heated and spend a few more hours with chapped lips to speak frankly to strangers. both summer and winter help me revive some childlike innocence. though now as i get older, i start to wonder what stole that innocence from me in the first place.

    after all the holidays and rewards of the season pass, we are confronted with a sharp reality to maintain resolutions, mainly those ambiguous toward hormonal imbalances. the whimsy of the winter has passed and suddenly we’re back on the path popularly traveled and illuminated with fluorescent cubicles and silent nights. it’s the depressive after the manic, and maybe even sometimes identical of the numbness of both. i feel quiet during these times, so much that i’m forced to reflect on why i feel different during the winter than i do with any other season. there are no leaves to watch fall, waves to watch pull back, or flowers to watch bloom. hell, you can’t even enjoy watching snow in texas, because when you do, hours later you’re evacuating your flooding apartment and carrying your inherited items to a curiously “safer” place.

    your friends are back from holidays, and all that time you spent lingering for their return remains still. my active impulsivity thrives in times where I’m forced to be still, looking to create chaos from contentment. it’s like i’m itching to create entertainment, for others, so maybe they too feel less barren in a dry spell. and so when they smile, i see the reflection of warmth i offered, and that is enough to keep me satisfied until the fire of social acceptance burns out shortly after. winter is nothing more or less than perfect humility pulling us back to our developmental essence. it’s the same girl who watched snow fall for the first time the day of her winter recital, stuck in a costume and smashing rosin on her pointe shoes at a ripe 10 years old. it’s the same girl who once lived to preform for others and is only recently feeling satisfied with performing for herself. no more costumes, no more grades, no more firsts, and no more limiting expressions of ego. just living, and sometimes merely surviving through the day.

    seasonal depression doesn’t necessarily consider time or weather. i always get sick around this time, somehow more and more intense than the prior. my throat feels tighter and body feels weaker. sometimes i wish to blame my disposition and inheritance of abnormal allergies. i only blame my perspective on the environment. there’s no sunshine in between the rain, only after or in little sections between clouds. during seasons like this, the sun comes out earlier and goes down later. until it resets, it’s simple nature of being sick of being sick, tired, and cold until you waste enough time inside to realize that the sun always been there but it’s your fault that you took it for granted. and when you don’t take it for granted, you still return back to a cold bed.

    that guilt forces you to plan to be more productive tomorrow. you stay up so late making these plans that you almost feel uncomfortable in your own bed. you wake up ten times more exhausted the next morning, despite your alarm clock still ringing from an hour prior. you’re head is killing you, and you don’t know if it’s from that Pinot you finished last night alone, the cedar that your older coworkers say is getting worse, or the little to too much sleep you had. google says it could be a number of things, but you wait an hour more to settle for your allergy pills, nasal rinse, nasal spray, ibuprofen, and cocktail of medicinal supplements. you stay in bed for a little bit longer hoping to pass some time before real life starts again, until it does start again. every single day.

    i guess a nice way to go about it would be to focus on the warmth others bring to your life. comparing body heat between loose hugs is much better than the strong wrap you’ve made tossing in the covers on your own accord. anyway, in the attempts to hug yourself, it is much easier to do so without all the layers and with a pair of arms that aren’t yours. the whole “self care” motif has been abused by the media so much that we only feel comfort when we see other people preforming acts of self care on tik tok or whatever. instagram. i don’t know, wherever you get your hours on end fix. although self care culture and its exploitation is a separate argument, seasonal depression simply forces us to look for the warmth we’ve been seeking within our own selves. not through little face masks or bubble baths or wine nights and what not, but through spending valuable time with yourself and the people who help you light that fire.

    Did you know that it’s not rest if you’re thinking about work the whole time? Or that it’s not socializing when you forget half the things you shared the next day? Is it not comfort when you only feel safe in one place? Am I calling you out right now? Am i calling myself out? Do we, the digital age, really understand what it’s like to be alone and how to feel okay with being alone? Without posting about it online much like I am now? Why do Sundays feel much like Fridays? Why is my bed so much more comfortable when I am forced to be productive? Can we blame it on the weather?

    i think i will for now, until i feel like getting out of bed today.

    i think the winter forces us to re-evaluate the colder parts of ourselves so we can feel warm again. that’s the simply stated version. really, it’s a time where we finally feel security (or, interestingly insecure) in the balance between silence and chaos, socialization and solitude, and hibernation and activity. however, i’ve only been taught in school that a balanced equation has zero output. without an uneven representation of either and or, my temporary and passing time means nothing. though i don’t particularly believe that, i believe it explains my arresting desire to tip the balance between remaining a mystery and becoming front page news for the evening. when the world stands still but the wind shakes the bare branches cold, my mind runs fast and my body is stunned frozen.

    it’s a time to realize that even though you want to spend just a little longer in bed, life will go on without you. the sun will set without you. the snow will fall without you. the friends will move without you. but, the cat will die without you. get up dammit! in all seriousness though, if you are struggling with your mental health, please reach out to a health professional. i mainly wrote this as a result of a temporary period of intrinsic angst and as a funky way to reach an appreciation of the cold, but take care of yourself. and not in the marketable and commercial way of taking care of yourself either.

    seasons pass, emotions fleet, and you will be okay.

    “I was at a friend’s house, and all of a sudden I was convinced the house was on fire and it was burning down. I was just sitting in her bedroom and obviously the house wasn’t on fire, but there was nothing in me that didn’t think we were going to die.”

    Emma Stone