Category: Writings

My room. My closet. My car. My hair. My brain.

Every once in a while, all of the above.

A mess.

Your twenties can feel disastrous. Like downward spiraling mixed with euphoria mixed with McDonald’s fries. We try to play it cool. The weekly I’m officially gonna get it together declaration strikes again, more boldly, more painfully, more dramatically. On social media and girl dates we put on filtered facades and swear we are doing so well, seriously so, so well guys. And for the most part we are. Most of us have a tremendous amount of privilege that we walk around with every single day and it’s important to recognize this. But there are moments when shit hits the fan and we immediately go running to the curtains to make sure that no one else can see our war zones of a life.

I’m learning to like the mess. We are in disarray, a shifting chaos that is learning, improving and changing. Growing is messy stuff. Ask any mother of a toddler. There’s spaghetti on the walls and yogurt in their hair and something questionable on their shirt. And it’s adorable. How many first birthday pictures are memorable because the kid ate her cake without smashing it in her face?

Your mess is your story, your mess is your narrative, your mess is the thing that keeps it interesting. We don’t read books or see movies for smooth, seamless, perfect, angelic lack of plots. A good plot looks a lot like a disaster and smells a lot like explosives.

Do it, screw it up, do it again, maybe screw it up worse. Watch yourself get better.

Look around at your mess. Don’t compare your mess to anyone else’s mess.

Appreciate your own mess.

We cover it in words, music, anecdotes, ums, hms, car horns, fans, ambiance, rain sound apps, noise machines. Anything and everything to cover it up.

Why do we hate it so much?

When it is silent we hear ourselves. Our own minds don’t shut up. They sound like us, same voice, speaking words that are much more raw, bitter, real, blunt, burnt than our outward voices could ever be. It’s panic and chaos and fear and repression, boiling to the surface the very second it gets a chance. So we turn on some Spotify and drown it out. But underneath that city street during rush hour haze of chaos is exactly what we need to hear whether we want to or not. Our inner voice of truth. That doesn’t get to say much very often. But when it does, it’s real. I saw a quote once “Silence isn’t empty. It’s full of answers.” And as powerful as our shaking voices may be, sometimes we need to stop, turn off Harry Styles, stfu and listen.

we smooth ourselves
brush stray hairs
cover imperfections
mask bright laughs
damper loud opinions
in an effort to be
enough
but
not too much

 

enough

to look at
smile at
love at

 

squelch the anger
bite your tongue
so he will look
and like
and love

 

he is turned on
by the softness
but we are screaming
about the shit
that is hard to scream about

 

run
keep running
from a girl
with the world at her fingertips

 

they will simplify you
widdle you down
to a body
and some long hair
and maybe you get to be funny

 

he just wants a
‘chill’ girl
a calm girl
who swallows her fire
so he can have his

 

watered down to a middle ground
to an average
that is not insulting nor exciting
that is all that you’re allowed to be

 

small
and
safe
and
sane

 

shallow waters
and lukewarm sins

 

and it’s not his fault
someone else told him that
and someone else told him that
and someone else told him that

but no one told me that.

Woke up, the teen years gone by. Things are about to start moving faster and faster and somehow even dizzyingly faster. The “real world” is looming heavy overhead, an empty threat come to life. Yet I’m pretty sure I’m mentally about 14 years old and I’m wondering if we ever actually feel any older or if it just shows up on our faces one day in deep lines and wisened eyes. We can remember turning ten, double digits– finally. The waiting game is over. The day to day countdowns, half-birthdays, nine and three quarter days are done. Twenty years old and just as confused as ten. It’s a big decade coming. The decade of college graduations, first real person jobs, real person crappy apartments, real person crappier cars, moves, hellos, weddings, weddings??, little feet, little things, enormous things, terrifying, terrifying, terrified. But I’ve decided we’re probably never truly, truly ready. It just happens to us and we sink or swim and call our moms in panicked desperation a lot. Because the older we get, the more we realize we do not know. The more we realize we don’t know, the more we realize that we don’t always need to. That’s the game, the never ending game, the figuring it out. Or sometimes not. It’s the simultaneous innate fear of the world and the plan to conquer it at the exact same time. Twenty.

please remember we live in a world

where people hold open doors for strangers.

and a little kid was just adopted. 

and someone just fell in love.

and someone is giving blood.

and today is a happy couple’s 50th wedding anniversary.

and tomorrow a man will pay for the person’s coffee behind him in line.

and yesterday a brand new baby was born.

and good things are happening

and good things are happening

and good things will keep on happening. 

there is sun and sunshine and yellow

somewhere some time somehow.

please remember we live in a world

where people hold open doors for strangers.