September
I could blame my mental health, or the 2 or 3 tiny tasks I do every day to be a human being, but I truly don’t think it’s appropriate. I “larp”, as the cool kids say, about wanting to write, about how I’d love to be a writer, but honestly it might not be the best idea. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve thought about it, and multiple times! I have a lot of ideas about so many different subjects. I’d still love to write and post about my hatred for pornography, on my personal relation on dialectics, I got an entire small rough draft on my love for Che and the revolutionary spirit, my hatred for imperialism, my sadness when it comes to Cuba and how they’re being strangled.
And now writing this down, I realize that everything is about me. Me, me, me.
Why does that bother me?
I mean, it is my blog, made for me and those 3 people that will click on this because they were bored and saw my Instagram story. Why would it be a problem that I use this as a sad little journal. But I am mad about it, it feels like I’m not supposed to do this. At the same time, writing in a strict academic format, as I’ve done, and tried to do, plenty of times before makes me extremely uncomfortable. I get worried about using the specific phrases and words that I “should be” using, to make sure I respect the field I’m writing about, I get worried about writing “objectively”, without imprinting my own biases and thoughts into it, but not making it too exact- I don’t want to be accused of using Artificial Intelligence because of a misplaced hyphen. I don’t even like hyphens; I barely know how to use them.
It feels like I have anxiety induced into me for every single one of my hobbies. I get worried about knitting, because I'm not doing it right, and I don’t sing to myself, dogs yelp when they hear me. I’m afraid to draw, to dance, to do anything, because I fear being perceived.
What an ironic thing to be when you are as self-obsessed as I am.
For a while, I was… more confident. I was receiving help for my mental health, I was passing all (but one) of my university courses, I built this tiny and horrible website that you can see by myself (and yes, I’m going to brag about basic HTML). And then I failed that one course, and I got more depressed again, and I got angry, and I failed almost all my courses in the 2nd semester, and graduated with fucking no one there for me, which I’ll write about. And then I went home, and I'm glad to be home but people love to bother me, or I’m bothered by everybody and looking for work in my village is impossible, and I don’t even know if these are actually good reasons for being an unemployed loser or I’m just making excuses for myself.
Can you gaslight yourself? Is that a thing?
This essay doesn’t have my usual, I-V points, which I think is cute, and I wanted it to be a little gimmick for my website, something recognizable, but in this moment, when I can barely comprehend what I’m writing about and where this will lead me, I don’t feel like putting those there is a good idea. I wanted my essays to always go from a tiny personal anecdote to a small analysis of our society and what it reflects, to a hopeful and tiny conclusion.
I have no idea what conclusion this tiny mess I’ll call an essay will have, but I want you to see that this essay is...here! I did do it; I wrote this essay, and if you are reading it, then it means that I published it. I’m still knitting, making a blanket (which I hope will be big enough, width-wise) for my boyfriend because I’m going to be leaving for Cluj again soon, and I want him to have something from me. I’ve picked up the guitar again, even though I am terrible, and I still dance to my favorite songs in my room at night. Because sometimes things don’t have to be perfect; they just have to be there.
And I guess this is my “it just has to be there” essay. After so long, after so much stress about creating, about perfectionism, I did write something. And it’s not very good, or very chronologically sound, but it’s here.
And I hope you do something for yourself! I hope you pick up writing again, or the guitar, or knitting, or anything you want to. My only wish is that one person feels emboldened to do something that they have been procrastinating on after reading this.
Thank you.