In one week I'm going to turn twenty-six. I can't remember looking forward to a birthday less. There's just so much pressure to make the most of your youth. It's something that everyone seems to want. The youngest this and the most youthful that and they are so young and you look so young.
There are many great things about turning twenty-five. The law trusts you a little bit more. You can hire a car. You don't have to record hours for driving lessons. It equals seven. It's a powerful number. It is also, quite often, the cut-off age for Youth aimed competitions. A lot of arts programs will try to offer you as many programs and competitions and awards until you are twenty-five, and then shit gets real. You're on your own. You're playing with the big guns. I don't even mind that, what I mind is that I regret not entering those competitions. I regret not just saying, hey, whatever, give it a shot. I always felt like I couldn't until I was perfect. So, I didn't try. I didn't enter. I didn't throw my hat in the ring and take a chance, and now I don't even have the opportunity. I hate that I care about this, that I regret it. That I feel like the whole arc of my life is to look back and say, "what if?" Why? Why do I think like that? Is it the media? The media showcasing so many young people. Young Hollywood. Up and Coming. This Three Year Old Will Break Your Heart With Her Voice. So many people want to dress like the young people. They want to live that lifestyle. They regret being insecure about their tight, wrinkle-free youthful bodies now that they are softer, and sagging, and wrinkling. I already look back at my younger body, with the handful of problems I have now, and think, "Why were you so ashamed? You were fine! Your clear skin! Your less-hairy body! Celebrate it. "I should have celebrated it more," I think...
...but fuck this guilt trip. Why can't I just suck at being young? Why can't I just accept that I'm a late starter, a Thursday's child, and I have a long way to go? I don't want to go back to being young. I was so bad at it. I was more annoying than I am now - and that's saying something. I was so ignorant. I was so selfish - more selfish than I am now. I felt so uncomfortable in my own skin. I only feel more and more comfortable every year. So why am I made to feel or let myself feel that I'm wasting my youth and letting my "best years" slip by, when maybe they are yet to come. Maybe they aren't either. Maybe it gets worse from here. Maybe. I'm not saying I want to sit on the couch and hope life brings me what I want. No. I will work hard for it. I am working hard for it. But I'm just so angry lately. I'm so angry and sad. I don't want to feel guilty anymore. I don't want to keep apologizing for myself. I don't want to feel guilty about sometimes being a grumpy bitch. I always feel like I'm begging and side-stepping around people and their moods, but why? Nobody is asking me to do that.
There's this weird thing that happens to anxious people. We are so aware of how lucky we are. We're so aware of how every moment, people die, good people who are making the most of every day, die. Yet, we sat at home with our fear and didn't do anything, and we're still here. We have this weird joke on us where we are so aware of our luckiness and therefore so afraid of its potential. We freeze in our awe of our luck, our fate, our lot.
I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to freeze with fear. If I do, however, I don't want to feel guilty about it, that just makes it worse.
I wake up.
It's really early.
I make a hot tea or coffee.
I stretch my body.
I eat.
I shower.
I dress.
I get shit done.
All day.
I enjoy it.
I am with people.
I make food.
I eat.
I watch TV.
I trade stories.
I laugh.
I have a bath.
I go to bed.
I read a book.
I sleep.
I age.
I am lucky.
I wake with no fear of that luckiness.
I wake up.
2 comments:
Strange.
I am a twenty-six year old guy from Sweden. I saw you on youtube in 2007. Seven years goes past and I find this entry on your blog and I connect more to this than a lot of other texts swooshing through my life via Facebook, Instagram and all other social media. But this blogentry was true social media, actually saying something and making me think.
Not meant to be creepy, it just kinda happened. That's what happens when you comment something at 1 AM. Anyway - thank you for the blogentry, it gave me new thoughts and ideas.
i have no context here, but to the rest of the world, this post IS crazy. you've pursued an acting degree, full time, you've immersed yourself in dance, theatre classes, a million theory books, i don't follow your twitter but it sounds a lot like you've been auditioning lately or preparing to, you know for every one of you there's 99 half-assers who take night classes or do school or community plays, have some day grind they hate which they dream of saving up enough to do what they want but in real life never will come close to actually taking seriously. all the while you're pouring your soul into what you love, day after day as you say, getting shit done... and on top of all this YOU'VE ALREADY BEEN SEEN BY MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. not just seen, reached out to them, bonded with them, you have had thousands upon thousands of actual, adoring fans, which is more than 99.999% of your current classmates/colleagues will ever be able to say. even here some random guy from Denmark has found this entry after 7 years, wants to tell you, you STILL connect to people. your youth - you spent it jet-setting the world meeting titans of industry, learning a completely different perspective from that of anyone now around you. you've won some national award given to one person a year. i'm not going to bother Googling it, but that alone is freaking crazy. even if you do nothing else with your life, like literally, drop everything, become a stewardess on a plane, that crashes into some tunnel in somebody else's nightmare, you will have accomplished more than virtually every 26-year-old aspiring actress will ever accomplish. i know by now you're downplaying that internet crap as juvenile (heh) and not to be taken seriously, but just because your impact on someone's life isn't listed in some magazine or placard or credits list doesn't lessen its meaning or your uniqueness in communicating in that way. at the end of the day what else is the purpose of all this art anyway.
you seem really, really, really hard on yourself that you have yet to spike the lottery twice, but you're obviously extremely intelligent and know that's silly, and that your feelings will flow and ebb and there is not really much you can do about them. and you basically know how gifted you are anyway, or your dreams would be aging, alongside the hobbyists'.
i've watched half of Mad Men - i still can't decide whether it's the greatest show of all time or the most boring show of all time.
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