All My Angst

I never thought of myself as an angsty teenager. That being said, when I was 13 and had just watched the third Pirates of the Caribbean, one of my journal entries started off like this:

“Well, life sure is a disappointment. Will and Elizabeth only get to see each other for one day every ten years.”

I then wrote another one and a half pages about my despair at this cinematic tragedy and then ended the journal entry talking about how painful my braces were.

So maybe I was a little bit angsty, but I think I’m more of an angsty young adult. Here’s a collection of thought-provoking musings from the past year.

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The morality of crying

I’ve cried more than usual this year, sometimes just intense 45-second bursts at a time. Things will come up and give me a lump in my throat for a tiny moment, and then it passes. I enjoy the sadness in a way, almost as a flavor of life I don’t usually experience. Or as if the pain means that I’m a good or worthy person for loving so fully.

Growing pains

Earlier this summer, I had my first experience feeling like I had grown up. I had some tough relationship decisions to make in the next few days, and I was camping by myself for the first time. After I set up my bed and ate some cold dinner, I went down to the nearby lake and told myself that I had the strength to do whatever needed doing. And I had this sudden knowing that I had just became an adult, whatever that means. Dealing with the myriads of uncertainty that this year brought up and saying goodbye to the last vestiges of childhood (besides my Peter Pan spirit) as my parents divorced and I helped my dad move also helped.

Why do I not miss people very much?

I only seem to miss people when I’m bored or lonely. Is something wrong with me? Is it a sign about the person I feel like I should be missing or would I just not miss anyone?

More about pirates

I was reading in this book about the Irish pirate Grania about her feelings towards her first mate — that she likes him to be near her just for the sake of him being. Will I ever feel that comfortable around someone and not feel like I’m performing my character or calculating what to say or not, and how to say it? The only person I don’t feel that way about is my sister, and that’s probably because I can’t do anything to weird her out any more than I already have XD

Slow dancing in a burning world

Have you seen Moana? These wildfires that have been ravaging the entire western half of the US this summer I feel are like Te Fiti, the earth goddess, after she got her heart stolen. Then she raged around in the form of a lava monster. She calmed down when Moana saw her for who she was and brought her heart back to her. So who is this wildfire spirit really? I mean, I can totally see why she’s raging around. I would be too. Someone bring her damn heart back.

Leaving Home

It felt too easy to stay home and vibe

I was scared of how easy it was

I knew I would feel like a loser if I stay too long without a plan

I felt like I had to keep moving, in any direction

At the same time, I felt so reluctant to leave, like I was doing the wrong thing or abandoning my family

Especially when I had no defined purpose for leaving

But I also had no defined purpose for staying

I just wish I could stay with everyone and make them happy

My occasional problem with freelance journalism

is —

It feels sometimes like I’m commercializing experiences. Trying to monetize a conversation I have with someone. Is it a real conversation if I have this in mind while having it? Are these excuses I’m making or a mindset that would make me better suited to something else?

Religion

Why did people stop worshiping multiple gods and goddesses? That’s way more fun and seems more accessible to me than worshiping one god. What if you don’t see yourself in Him? If there are multiple options and you don’t feel godly, then at least you can feel godlessly. Or spiritly. But in the one god religions, if you don’t see yourself reflected in an old white bearded dude sitting on a cloud, then too bad for you.

It makes sense in a way though, because if you can’t access the power you might have if you could see yourself in a greater spirit, then you feel a lot less worthy and healthily entitled and more likely to leave the big things to others who seem to be able to channel that power. Which brings me to:

Force-fed helplessness

My friend Oriana and I were talking the other day about how discouraged we felt. There was a lot of desperation in the air and we felt like we’re floundering and should be doing more things in terms of social justice. We care so deeply and every time we choose to give that care to an issue, nothing seems to happen, and then some new tragedy occurs — another shooting or mass sterilization or more kids separated from their families. And then we’re left caring about the new thing and the mountain of unresolved old things, and I don’t know if I’m brave enough to feel that kind of heartbreak all the time.

Oriana and I are smart, caring and ambitious. What kind of trick is it that we’re the ones made to feel so disempowered? People raised us saying we were going to be the leaders of tomorrow. So why do we feel like we can’t change anything, and why are we feeling so helpless? Why do I feel so small and insignificant and at the same time like everything matters?

Can I be a Dad?

On the way back from Colorado this June, I stopped at Krause Springs near Austin, TX. There was a rope swing there and before I knew it, I’d spent almost six hours throwing myself off it. I’d only eaten a pear and potato chips for breakfast but I didn’t even feel hungry because I was having the best time getting to know the people who were taking turns on the swing. One kid’s dad was there, helping the littler ones out because the rope was super chunky and sending the occasional backflip. When he left for awhile, I took over his self-appointed job, and decided that like my friend Caylin, I want to be a dad someday, instead of a mom XD

I say that because I never see any moms teaching the local kids back flips?? I eventually mastered them and this other young guy and I were encouraging everyone else as they tried whatever tricks they were doing, and it was so incredibly wholesome.

If I do become a parent one day in the far future, I would want to be active and free enough to spend hours like this, because I’m strong enough to help them with the heavy rope, because the kids want me there too, because I’m acrobatic enough to do back flips and gutsy enough to show off a little.

I just wondered why I never see/saw moms doing that kind of thing. Could I be the exception or would I be sucked into making lunches on the shore all the time and being too inhibited to send it??

Hypocrisy

My sis said that in-person volunteering isn’t a good idea because of covid, which I respect; but at the same time, we went to an actual coffee shop the other day. I don’t want my existence to be filled with this hypocrisy. What if I have kids one day and they ask me how I responded to the BLM movement and I have to say, “I served my community by teaching skiing, again, to mostly white kids, because it was an easy job for me.”

Small Mountain Towns

I’m still trying to figure out why I’m currently here in Telluride, because getting here was so easy. My friend said she feels like this town chooses who it wants to be in its community and then spits them back out when they’ve completed their learning.

So half the time, I wonder if I’m here for a reason, or if I’m here because things just worked because I’m lucky as usual. Sometimes you follow your intuition and you’re not exactly sure where it’s taking you.

Why I Don’t Try to Get High Anymore

When I first got high with an ex and a friend in my sophomore year of college, I remember feeling so disturbed because all of a sudden, I saw them but didn’t see who they were. I still have that feeling sometimes with people I really should know — I see them but it all feels surreal and it feels like I’m looking at them through a lens.

Sometimes in what is supposed to be an intimate moment, I feel this distance like I don’t know who I’m engaging with at all. Then I have to act out the intimate feeling, because how are you supposed to explain to a person you’re supposed to know really well that you don’t feel like you know them in this crucial moment?

Planes

I’ve been thinking a lot about planes lately. Planes of knowledge. We all start out on slightly or vastly different planes. When I read a book, maybe I wouldn’t be able to tell you how it changed my life a week later, but it probably shifted the plane of knowledge I exist on, even imperceptibly. Maybe my plane is now tilted .1 degree more to the left, and it will probably never go back to where it was.

Sometimes I really feel like if I look hard enough at the world with my eyes crossed, something in another dimension will pop out at me, just like those 3D optical illusions that used to be in newspapers and are now on Reddit.

Smartphones

I don’t always love technology, but one morning I woke up and said thanks universe I’m pretty glad to be here. I looked at my phone and was so joyful to see all the names of my favorite people show up there. Even though they’re on another side of a screen and all I’m getting is a fraction of their thoughts everyday, I’m so grateful for all the dope people I’m somehow lucky enough to know. It sounds cliché, but these people, aren’t they they reason I’m alive?

I’ve been watching Avatar the Last Airbender and the Legend of Korra, and I’ve been thinking…

Maybe we can all go into the Avatar state if we’re in touch enough with the spirit inside us.

I’ve been listening to this podcast called All My Relations. One of the quotes that stuck with me was:

“How do you want to feed the people? That’s your purpose.”

I’m not sure if I know yet. Although I think I do and one day I will listen deep enough to find out.