I talk about being 20

How to: be terrifyingly honest

I once read that every poet carries a specific emotion in their writing. For example, Richard Siken’s is panic. I think Ada Limón’s is desire.

Ever since I saw that, I wondered what mine was. I wanted someone to tell me, but no one is ever going to tell you.

I don’t think of myself as a poet. I think I’m a writer, but the certainty depends on the day. Sometimes I barely feel like a person, but that’s a different conversation. I’m just someone with a large longing built within their system.

If I had to categorize my tone I would think love, or deep dread.

I’m a big procrastinator. Currently, I am writing my newsletter, while my radio show airs in 30 minutes. I have a scholarship due in 5 days, a gift exchange due in 9 days, and spring semester begins in 10 days. Clearly, it’s going great.

It’s not as if I don’t know what needs to be done. I know what needs to be done, it’s the panic I’m not excited for. It happens every year before classes. I need to rework my schedule around the week before/the week of and I do it in the middle of a panic attack. Everything ends up working out but it’s still done in the middle of a panic attack.

It’s interesting. I’m obsessed with the idea of being in my 20’s. I hate every movie with someone in their 20’s because it depicts it as fun and full of life and parties and new opportunities. Maybe it’s just the whole current pandemic situation, but that is not my 20’s. My 20’s have been filled with grief: over my childhood, the person I am no longer allowed to be, the friends I have lost, the family that has passed away. I constantly feel wracked with overwhelming sadness. Fall semester I managed to “cope” with a Chris Traeger mentality, until I got terribly sick for two weeks and was forced to become stagnant.

Chris Traeger (Parks and Rec) being so me

I was hit with this overwhelming feeling about performing and love. I have performed for so long to make other people desire me that I don’t think people will love me as I am. So I struggle with stopping the performance and hating keeping it up.

All this just to say that I hate the media depiction of 20’s being fun and the quirky best friend. I am fun, and I am enjoying my life but in a lot of parts, I feel a deep sadness and despair. I want this newsletter to be an honest blog, but I’m afraid of being me that might turn people away.

I keep a daily mini journal of what I do every day, but I haven’t kept up with it this week. I say to do my newsletter at the end of the week because it’s a weekly recap, but I can’t remember what happens this week. Maybe I might start doing Sundays. I don’t know.

I have to apply to be a Communication double major, even though my GPA is not high enough. I have to rework my schedule. I have to practice tagalog. I have to finish my incomplete class before the year is over. I have to get an internship. I have to get a job. I have to write a book.

I don’t know what I’m doing. Maybe that’s what being 20 is. Feeling grief a lot of the time, and comparing yourself to other people in such a way that you constantly feel like you need to catch up, and not knowing what you’re doing, and making things up as you go along.

I did musical theatre in elementary school and one of the mottos is fake it till you make it and then fake it till you believe it. That was my goal for this year. I get so caught up in not believing it that when it comes to faking it, I’m scared other people will find me out. Like I’m caught in a museum I didn’t pay for.

I don’t like the person I am but I wouldn’t want to be anyone else. I want to graduate and be working in a job already but I like what I’m learning and everyone’s talking about grad school. I like watching movies and television but I feel like it makes me come off as a lazy person.

Is it working? Is the dread leaking through?

But here’s the thing — because I can’t just leave you on a depression note, no matter how good it sounds. Your 20’s are about living. That part is true. Yes, a lot of it is crying and watching movies about how nothing feels good enough and writing poems addressed to the best friend who broke your heart and intense immersion in self-care books that you will never read. But it’s also last-minute plans to parties with your friend you just met last week and small-town concerts with a group of people you barely know and watching terrible movies with your favorite people. It’s living. It’s I have a stack of things due and if they don’t go my way I fear I might collapse peppered in with music and laughter and talking to cushion your fall.

Milf from Fleabag

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Last watched: The Regulars dir. by Mikey Murphy (Youtube)

Last read: Cherry by Nico Walker

Books read: 2/12