1/4 of your life
You are leaving soon, and so are they.
I’m pretending that everything is okay and that I know exactly what I’m doing. I’ve thrown out the thought of getting enough sleep because I have no idea what I have to wake up for. Random thought, but it would be better if I threw out my unused clothes. The ones I keep have locked me into a vessel I don’t want to leave — I’d adopted quite the LA aesthetic with a beach outfit, class outfit, cafe outfit, dance outfit, nightclub outfit, etc etc. The vessel where I live each day in, making a lot of mistakes but always hoping that I can convince people I’m both a smart and a good person.
We’re driving through the tunnel with the windows down, we have our highest beams on so that we don’t get lost. We are relaxed in our seats, talking and listening to each other’s wins and failures of the day. We feel safe with each other as if we are seat belts of the car, strapping the other down so as to soften the blow from life’s jabs. When we get out of here, I swap ripped jeans for suit pants, avocado for ulam, from texting you everyday to only seeing a small circle of your stagnant face and your half-smile on my phone.
I walked into the last first day of class feeling happy. It’s like that time she showed me what classes she’d signed up for the next term and imagined that she’d finally achieved metamorphosis, her chance to leave her cocoon to become a good student. She shows me how happiness is beyond an improvement in well being, it is a rebirth of the symbolic self into someone new. What changed within? I think it is the increased saturation of the expression of hope. We are happy when we have a reason to hope for change. Reasons come from somewhere, which means that you can look everywhere.
I’m always suspicious when I’m happy. Some part of me thinks that I used to be a pretty happy kid growing up, until something changed inside my brain somewhere along the way. Things were never really this hard. Some time ago, you/I had decided to philosophize, and this is what you get. While others romanticized and embraced culture, you tore it apart because they were oppressive systems that tortured you and everyone you loved. You’re dried out of even an ounce of hope. You questioned everything until you could not anymore. You are paralysed, disillusioned. Hey, remember, you used to be a pretty good dancer but now you can’t even keep up with the rest of the class. You looked at yourself up close to find what made up your core but somehow ended up hating every inch of it. Your family thinks you’re a stranger from the walls you built around yourself in searching for clarity within. It seems to me, that you might have arrived at your quarter life crisis. You don’t know who you are at your core anymore.
You know by now too, that hormones and brain chemicals are not very good for making you hopeful, but hey, friends are. You really only have three friends you would do anything for and you still have both your parents. Maybe that’s enough for now.
Best of luck, dude.
