Originally published November 2022.
I give word hugs. I can’t be there to buy you a coffee I mean a wine, and let you vent to me even though venting accomplishes very little, and I certainly can’t make the overwhelming realities of like…being alive go away. But I can write to you in a way that I hope makes you feel seen. I hope I can help us feel less alone, and give us permission to experience some ease. It’s permission that was always really lacking in my life and so I tend to hand it out like rave flyers now. Being a person is kind of a lot, and I hope for the time you spend reading my work you feel like you can relax a little.
You’re not wrong all the time. I never know who needs to hear this, but I’m always sure someone does, and given that my audience is predominantly people who went through puberty in the 90s I’m certain it’s falling on wide-open ears. We’re the “peer pressure” generation, and while drugs and alcohol and other things kids cooler than me did while cutting class always got the real attention, do y’all remember how peer pressure actually referred to everything else about your existence? I sure as shit do.
Your clothes. Your hair. Your makeup. Shoes. What you ate for lunch. Who you sat with at lunch. Your athletic ability (or lack thereof). The book covers you used and which stickers you carefully adorned them with. Or maybe you left yours raw and exposed to the elements like an animal even though that was explicitly against the rules and your mom would get a bill for the book at the end of the year. Even something as out of our control as which bus we took to school was yet one more element of “they’re cool, they’re popular, I’m not” that we had to contend with. Every single piece of incoming information was an opportunity for comparison. A reminder that other people were doing things a different way than you and their way was better because they were not you and you are perpetually wrong because you’re not like someone else.
And that, kittens, was before social media.
Is it any goddamned wonder none of us can feel settled and secure in our own brains as whole-ass adults? Is it shocking to you that you constantly feel like you could (should?) be doing things a different (better?) way and that changing the way you operate/think/feel/behave looms over you like a 30-foot chore that has legs and teeth? No! We didn’t learn that who we are is okay, we learned to compare, and to assume that whatever everyone else was doing was better. We weren’t taught to look at other people and see other people. We learned to look others and see a list of instructions.
We’re a generation of human beings sent here to apologize for the way we showed up. As if we even asked to come to a planet that has this many snakes and bugs. Then, once we grew up and realized how much bills are (and they show up every month wtf) we were issued comparison and anxiety like they’re library cards. We started seeing certain people or stories lifted up as “right” or even “perfect” and very quickly realized that these narratives are hard to attain. But we keep striving, because the only thing that’s harder than exhausting yourself in the name of an assumed “best” life is the shame of giving up.
The couple beaming in a photo with their first house keys with no mention that one of them thinks they paid way too much. The mom praised on Instagram by her spouse because she “does it all!” with no mention of how little he actually does. The perpetual string of new job announcements, with ever-elevating glossy job titles, with no mention of how desperately someone needs to show people their “success” in order to feel safe. The perfect, damn-near professionally decorated Christmas front porch that probably cost three grand and caused a massive fight during installation. Article after article on self improvement with very few arguments made for self-acceptance before those “improvements” are achieved. And then we come home to a space and a job and a life that is so far from what we think we’re “supposed to” have that the mere idea of trying to move forward drains our energy.
Y’all know it’s all bullshit, right? Those perfectly organized and labeled pantries only exist in rented spaces staged for content creation. In my opinion candid, unplanned photos are the only ones telling the truth. I’ve learned to know, not just think but know, that nobody is “perfect,” and honor a truth that used to make feel like I needed to change: imperfections have always been more interesting to me anyway. My messy silverware and kitchen utensil drawers used to make me feel behind in life. Now they’re my reminders that I’m human and an organized drawer or two won’t actually bring me any more joy than the bliss I find in completely ignoring that unnecessary “upgrade.” Real life is often unattractive and I personally find that super soothing.
Even at 40, my heart sometimes feels heavy under peer pressure. I see my generational siblings exhausted, moving through life as though they’re just trying to hang in there every day until bedtime, and that feels like an unfair way to live. I see us looking absolutely shocked every time we’re reminded that we get to do something other than just survive.
You don’t have to get better at anything. You don’t have to possess a skillset that you don’t already have. You aren’t wrong for not being good at things other people are good at. Eventually we’re going to have to realize that there’s a point to the things we happen to be good at, too. Ignoring weaknesses and focusing on strengths doesn’t sound like giving up to me. It sounds like a smart use of time.
What if instead of trying to improve in areas that seem overwhelming, we accept being shit at certain things, and just enjoy the parts of ourselves that we like, the parts that make us feel confident? I couldn’t be the “life of the party” if you paid me to be. I can’t sleep in past 6am. I will never, ever dust my shelves enough. But I’m always going to send thank you notes in the mail and I’m going to text you to say hi if we haven’t spoken in awhile.
If it’s exhausting you, and it’s not paying your mortgage, maybe let it go. Maybe shed the shoulds we thought would earn us societal praise in favor of what’s actually beneficial for our mental health in the moments we’re quiet and alone. If you’re not good at something, maybe you never have to be. Maybe it’s the things that you never saw celebrated that are what you’re allowed to love about you most. Maybe it’s time to feel right, and rest. Not because we’ve earned it, but because we never had to.