to care or not to care

 I guess, ideally, it would be better not to care.

I turned 30 yesterday.
France is on lockdown again, so celebrations are limited to, well, to the same as last year: nothing.
And I guess it’s fine. I’ve spent so much time pretending I didn’t care about my birthday that I shouldn’t be surprised when no one is aware of it.
In a way it’s quite ironical: I started doing that to avoid the disappointment of people not celebrating it. If I don’t tell them, then I can’t be disappointed when they don’t remember it. Mission accomplished?

My mother sent me a message on the family group chat. My siblings added theirs.
I had seen my mother’s side of the family on Sunday so it wasn’t surprising that no one called yesterday.
My father’s mother sent me an email one day early before pointing out by text that she knew the date but she had thought we were the 7 on Monday. Better early than late, she concluded.
My father’s brother sent me a text.
My mother in law sent a text and called. Just to be sure. It was awkward, but it was nice of her.

H, despite his rising anxiety, wished me a happy birthday first thing when he emerged from our bedroom.
My friend who lives in Japan and with whom I only talk every once in a while remembered and sent me a message.
One of my newest friends sent me a text. I think she remembered the discussion we had had on why my birthday usually made me sad.
My group chat friends sent me messaged in the evening, even though I don’t often interact with them.

A while ago I decided I would stop trying to maintain friendships in which I was the only one keeping in touch.
It’s hard not to feel guilty, like I was betraying someone.
But it’s because the disappointment just stings too much.
I got a text in the evening, sometime after midnight. I had gone to sleep already.
It felt like an afterthought.
Like they just saw the date and went “oh shit” and shot a text my way.
Is that all I am for you now? An afterthought?
You say you love me but how am I supposed to know? Your birthday present is still in my living room, waiting for an opportunity to see you.
I guess living with my father doesn’t help.
He only remembered this morning.
He texted me that he would call later today. I was half of a mind to tell him not to bother.
I can’t blame him. I only wished his a couple of days after the right date.
I guess our relationship can’t really suffer anymore. We’d need to have one for that.

That’s not true. We do have some kind of relationship.
but we function just as well as cats and dogs.
I have no doubt that he loves me. I’m just not really a priority.
My father is a problem solver who relies on the validation he gets from feeling useful and needed. There’s nothing wrong with that. I function the same way.
He will always be here to repair stuff, build stuff, drive somewhere. If there is something he can /do/, he’ll do it in a blink of an eye.
But if there is no /action/ to be done, then he is at loss. Emotional work has never been his strong suit.
Home’s never been a place to find emotional comfort.
So I’ve grown never to depend on people for emotional support and to deal with my problems on my own.
Strong and independent.
So if I don’t need anything fixed, my father doesn’t really have any reason to interact with me I guess.
It’s okay. We’ve never been a very tight knit family.
And yet, sometimes I wish we were a bit less stubborn and a bit more caring.

Why can’t I just shake off the bitter taste of disappointment?
What can’t I just be satisfied with what I have?
Why can’t I just let go?

My friends will come in 10 days. It doesn’t matter that none of them remembered on the date. They’ll be here for me and we’ll celebrate together.
It won’t matter. Right?

A letter to who I used to the future

 

I am turning thirty soon, and I thought I could use this milestone to look on what life has taught me so far.
This is a letter to who I used to be,

You don’t know me, but I know you.

Ten years ago, I was turning twenty. I was both a child and an adult; terrified of never succeeding in becoming the latter, without being fully the former either anymore.
At twenty, I was feeling both invincible and already defeated. I wanted to conquer the world but felt I was already running out of time to do so.
Twenty is an odd age: It is old enough to have face challenges and experienced trauma, but young enough to feel that the world belongs to us.
I’ve always harboured, despite my best efforts, a sense of dread that I was meant to do something, as well as an all devouring dread that I was running out of time to do so.
At twenty, I felt that I needed to make each day count and live to the fullest. I had to. Or else.
Or else what exactly? Was I afraid to fail at… life? Can someone fail at life?
Where did this unshakable sense of urgency come from?
I’ve had time to ask myself that in the last months while contemplating how to celebrate my third decade in this time of plague.
So far I have come down with two things: Fear of missing out and ageism.
First let’s address the all-encompassing feeling that I needed to do something that counted, something that mattered, something remarkable.
I partly blame this on my love for adventure novels and the unreasonable expectations of what life could be it gave me and a very deep-rooted fear of missing out.
The Fear Of Missing Out (or FOMO) is a feeling that others are experiencing better things and living over all fuller lives than you are and that you are, on some level, missing out a fundamental aspect of life. It usually damages self-esteem and involves a certain envy towards people whose experience of life seems more complete.[i]
The term itself was coined in 1996 by Dr Dan Herman, a marketing strategist, in a research paper.[ii]
Though the feeling itself is not new, it has gained more coverage in the last decades as the feeling is acerbated by Social Media.
We live in a hyper-documented society, in which social media allows us to see almost live, what is happening in other people’s lives. This can lead to an overwhelming sense of social expectations and make us feel inadequate in comparison.
And it is a difficult feeling to escape when scrolling down our social media feed.
And for the longest time, I know I fell prey to it.
I sometimes still do.
I felt that what I was doing was not as good, not as interesting, as what others were doing. My daily life often felt subpar to what I perceived life was supposed to be.
One of the ways to work around it I found was simply to avoid social media. No more Facebook, no Instagram, no snapchat, no network whose goal is to document my life.
It took time and effort to stop wondering what other people were doing or to wonder what they would think of what I was doing.
On the other hand, there was the constant dread of being running out of time.
This is something I still struggle with today.
It comes from Ageism.
According to the World Health Organization, Ageism is: “Ageism is the stereotyping and discrimination against individuals or groups on the basis of their age. Ageism can take many forms, including prejudicial attitudes, discriminatory practices, or institutional policies and practices that perpetuate stereotypical beliefs.”[iii]
It might sound weird to claim to suffer from it while being so young, but Ageism doesn’t actually affects only old people. For a very simple reason: we are all going to be old at some point, and society doesn’t like old people.[iv]
Old people are presented as frail, dependent, rigid in their morals and incapable of change. Society celebrates youth and vilifies old age.
Look at the media you consume and ask yourself, how old are the protagonists that shape your understanding of society?
Beauty standards present aging as something shameful that should be hidden under hair dyes and combated with creams and serums.
Unsurprisingly, this affects women more than men.
From our youngest age, we are told that only the young are actors of change. and shown that growing old equals becoming dull. Uninteresting. Useless.
This leads to body dissatisfaction, anxiety and unsurprisingly, with the constant dread of being running out of time, even at a rather young age.
In her Ted talk[v], writer and activist Ashton Applewhite explains how ageism is, like all discriminations, a human-made concept that hurts society at large.
Accepting that I soon won’t be in my twenties anymore and that I haven’t done anything even remotely important as been a process. Is a process.
Though using the time I have wisely and thriving to live to the fullest is a good things, I often have to remind myself that I should first and foremost thrive to enjoy the time I have, living in the present rather than constantly thinking ahead, picturing what comes next before having even lived the now.
Letting go of the idea that life is short and that only the first half really matters. That success isn’t limited to the first four decades of one’s existence and that aging should not mean going to waste.

In a surprising turn of even, a lot of those reflections took shape during lock down, when I realized than for me, being deprived of any option to go out and meet people and travel and go on adventures was actually a relief. It gave me permission to stay at home and only do what I wanted to. I suddenly didn’t feel guilty for not being doing something.
Don’t get me wrong: I love going out with my friends, but lock down gave me the opportunity to reflect of why I always felt like I needed to be out, what made me feel like I had to be witnessed having fun for it to be real.
In that regard, I know I am one of a very small number of lucky people who didn’t suffer from the lockdown.

So to you whom I was ten years ago,
Enjoy the small things that life throws your way and stop looking for the one great big moment when “your life will truly begin”. Because it will never come and because you are already living it.
Remember that no one else is you and that only you can fully appreciate the way you live your life. Be yourself and accept who you are.
It’s okay if you’re not special. It’s okay if you never do anything remarkable. You do not actually need to live your entire life wondering what legacy you will leave after your die. Start by actually living each day in a way that makes you feel good.
In a noise of social media, ask yourself what social media bring you and do not feel obligated to contribute to them more solely because that’s what other people do. Your time is yours and you should spend it doing what you like, not what you think people would find cool.
To you, who are turning twenty, know that this is a unique chapter of your life, but so are all the others. There is no requirement to meet to turn thirty so stop focusing on who you think you have to become and actually start thinking about who you want to become and why.
And it’s fine if it changes.
Have fun and take care of yourself. There is only one you and nothing is worth damaging yourself. No job, no love story, no great adventure is worth it. Give it your best, but don’t sacrifice yourself.
I wish you to find things that are worth the time you invest in them and that you learn to know and trust yourself. You’re probably terrified at the idea of choosing a path for your future, but let me tell you a little secret: It’s okay if you get it wrong. Several times. They aren’t failures, they are adventures. Veni, Vidi, who cares if you Vici. You experienced and that’s all that mattered. There is not one good way to live your life, so don’t be afraid to try different things.

And to you who I might be in ten years.
When I was a teen I never imagined I’d reach the great old age of thirty, but here I am. So what does being forty will look like?
So far I have discovered that much about never succeeding to become an adult was unfounded: I can both pay my taxes and buy a house and sleep with a dinosaur plush and enjoy Sundays in my pajamas wearing my favorite Thumper slippers. I can love cartoons and be taken seriously at work.
I hope that the next ten years will bring adventures, big and small and that I will know how to enjoy both.
To you who is turning forty, I wish you to have done things you’re proud of. They don’t need to be big, they just need to make you go “I did that.” Just valuable enough that they make you feel good.

And to all of us, I hope you are happy. Not rich, not successful, not remarkable, just happy.

---

[i] https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-cope-with-fomo-4174664

[ii] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/bm.2000.23

[iii] https://www.who.int/westernpacific/news/q-a-detail/ageing-ageism

[iv] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/sep/14/the-ugly-truth-about-ageism-its-a-prejudice-targeting-our-future-selves

[v] https://www.ted.com/talks/ashton_applewhite_let_s_end_ageism

Procrastination

So.
I have the story. I have the plot, the characters.
I mostly know what I am supposed to write.
And yet here I am.
Struggling to put one word in front of the other.
My brain keeps slipping away, unable to focus.
I have trouble visualizing scenes, finding a rhythm in the dialogues.
And it's frustrating.
I am constantly behind on my word count, but I can't seem to be able to get my brain to just
focus.
Stray thoughts, teeth rattling,
I hate when I am there.
Where's the hyper fixation when I need it? 

On the difficulty of setting priorities

 So many things I want to do and only a limited amount of time available.

My side of the living room is quite an apt representation of what's inside my heads.
Piles of books I want to read, Notebooks for classes I want to complete. Binders and textbooks and folders for work.
There are piles of fabric for things I want to create, costumes and clothes alike. Some work in progress on top of the already unstable stack.
Boxes of knitting equipment and a bagful of yarn balls.

I want to be more stylish so I want to sew more, but if I dedicate my time to sewing it means I do not have time for writing anymore.
I want to be knowledgeable and well read so I can't sacrifice my daily reading while commuting to knitting, but then when am I ever going to find time to use all the yarn I have and all the ideas that lurk inside my brain?
I also want to watch more movies, keep an eye on the news, practice my foreign languages, have a social life, stay fit (if not even fitter)

I am of a rather passionate disposition. I like throwing myself completely into something and give it my all, sleep and sanity included if required.
The problems start when my brain can't decide what to hyper focus on.
I've always lives with the feeling that every minute counts and that I am constantly running of time, which can be a great source of motivation, but also become very difficult when it comes to setting priorities.
Choosing between hobbies is like choosing which version of me I am going to give up on.
I know it sounds harsh and overly dramatic, but this is how my brain reacts to choices.
It is the underlying terror of not becoming enough, not doing enough, not trying hard enough that fuels me into trying to become an excellent jack of all trades.

Do I want to be a craftsman or do I want to be an academic? Do I want to be a writer or a reader? Do I want to be strong or flexible.
Those are some the questions that keep me awake at night.

An Ode to Shyness

 Photo by Pragyan Bezbaruah from Pexels

« L’enfer c’est les autres » Hell is other people, Jean Paul Sartre wrote in his play No Exit.

By this, he didn’t mean that the presence of other people is insufferable, but that, should my relationship with others be tainted, then life altogether becomes tainted.
Sartre wrote extensively on what the other’s gaze does to someone.
In Being and Nothingness, he argues that without the gaze of the other, it is impossible to be aware of one’s self, since, only through the other’s gaze can one see themselves as object. Only through the other’s gaze can they see themselves from another perspective.
We see ourselves because others see us.
This is, according to him a necessary element to re-evaluate one’s self.
I don’t believe our era is any vainer that the previous ones, but I do believe that the social pressure surrounding the way we present ourselves has taken a different shape.
With social media, we aren’t only submitted to the gaze of people we encounter, but also to the gaze of complete strangers who live half the world away. All while being told “not to pay attention to what people think” in fear of becoming shallow, vain and superficial.
But according to Sartre, not paying attention to another’s gaze is not only impossible, but also not advisable. Foregoing the other’s gaze is also to forego our only tool at re-assessing who we are and who we want to be. How can we know the limits of our self if we don’t have a mirror to look at.
So no, paying attention to how people perceive you doesn’t make you an awful self-centered person.
I am very shy and quite very self-conscious and I have often been chastised by my friends and family for being so concerned with what people thought of me. I’d then feel guilty every time I didn’t do something because I felt too uncomfortable, admonishing myself to stop caring and just do the damn thing like everybody else.
This, as you might imagine didn’t really help my self-esteem. I’d either feel like a coward for not daring to do something or if I actually did the thing I’d feel like awfully uncomfortable and exposed, sometimes accompanied by a fair deal of feeling like a fraud.
On rare occasions I admit I would actually be glad I had managed to grab hold on my courage.
We live in a society in which being shy is seen as a flaw, an obstacle to overcome. The media is full of extraverts, of larger than life personalities, of people whose lives revolve around interaction and attention. Actors, politicians, influencers. Popularity and extravagance are qualities to revere.
We are being told to embrace our lives and live it to the fullest. And in those narratives, not doing something because it makes you uncomfortable is presented as a failure. As a missed opportunity.

Shyness, prudishness and general dislike for public attention are looked down as flaws. Introverts are often told to “open up”. Shy people are told to “learn to let go” or to “be brave”.
In short, those traits, which we perceive thanks to the reflection society presents us of ourselves, are seen as negative.
But what if we did “embrace who we are”? Embraced the shyness. Embraced the Prudishness.
We know society is biased towards extraversion, so the mirror in which we see ourselves is not impartial. It is biased, bent by society’s expectations and values. So, though the image that we see in it is useful, we need to be aware of its distortion.
Shyness doesn’t have to be a terrible flaw to be overcome, but simply a trait of your personality. Something to be claimed and respected.
We saw with the lockdown how relying on outside interactions to have a sense of existence can also be harmful. So why not embrace your shyness?
It took me a while to figure out how to do this.
To me, it boiled down to two things:
— figuring out what really made me the happiest
— feeling around my shyness and prudishness to figure out its limits and what I could tolerate.
The first step for me was to stop making myself uncomfortable by feeling like I had to overcome my shyness, by forcing myself to be outwardly and extrovert when I didn’t feel like it. We don’t all need to be under the spot light and I am actually glad to leave it to those who enjoy it. I am happier living a quiet unassuming life. It’s not very sexy. It’s not novel worthy. But all in all, that’s how I feel the happiest. It took a while to get rid of the idea that I was wasting opportunities.
Then, I learnt to say no to things I knew would make me uncomfortable, even if it would help my popularity or my image. If goes with the first step, but this one is more about resisting the siren call of well-meaning people who see shyness as an obstacle.
It took a while, but it actually helped me find out which of the people I called friends actually loved me for who I am and not just for who I forced myself to look like. People learnt to see me in smaller committee, not to pressure me into doing things I didn’t feel comfortable with.
And finally, I learnt to explore my shyness, on my own, and see how far I felt comfortable going.
It’s not that people’s gaze has stopped influencing me. It’s that I used it to re-assess my priorities and I am now much more at peace with the reflection people show me of myself.
So, do look at what people show you of yourself, and embrace it. Or change it. But don’t let it feel inadequate.

This article appeared in the fourth issue of Antigone, Seeing. You can read it here.

On The Benefits of Being An Outsider

Photo by Ivan Bertolazzi from Pexels

Have you ever felt like you were utterly inadequate in doing something and that whatever you were doing couldn’t possibly be what was expected of you? Have you ever felt like you were somehow a fraud and that you were going to be discovered? Or that you do not deserve praises because you really had no idea what you were doing?

You probably have. Like 60 to 70% of people during their lifetime.
Those are usually signs of what is called the imposter syndrome, coined by Psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne A. Imes in 1978[i]. It describes different experiences in which someone might feel that they are not deserving of the responsibility or praise they are being given and subsequently develops mechanisms to compensate this feeling.
If you recognized yourself in those questions and descriptions, don’t worry. The first thing you need to remember is that you are not alone.
Neil Gaiman [ii]mentioned struggling with this, despite the countless prizes that he received, Neil Armstrong admitted feeling unworthy of all the praises.
How can those people feel illegitimate when they have done things as impressive as Walking on the moon? And if those people, experts in their fields don’t feel legitimate despite their success, how could we possibly feel legitimate in doing anything?
Well the first step might be to give up on the idea that we need to be experts to do something great.
Often times we give up on projects before even trying because we feel like we ought to know more about it before doing it or because we think we ought to build up our skills before embarking in such an endeavour. But if even masters of their trades feel inadequate, then why wait? Why not give it a try.
The difficulty of the imposter syndrome is that it’s all in your head, and it can be very difficult to acknowledge that your brain might be what’s holding you back and recognising its patterns. But one you have noticed, the only thing you need to do is convince your brain. No big life change, no requirement for money or time. Just good old auto-persuasion. After all, if you managed to persuade yourself that you shouldn’t be here, it means that you have the necessary influence to convince yourself of the opposite too.
In her Ted Talk, Amy Cuddy[iii], a social psychologist suggests that before facing a situation in which you know you’ll feel vulnerable or exposed, you should try to take a power pose for 30 seconds to two minutes. Forcing your body into a specific attitude boosts your hormones and in turn helps you act more confident even in stressful situations. Though it might feel preposterous or ridiculous at first, it is important to keep in mind that you have nothing to lose by trying. Lock yourself in the toilets for 2 minutes, stand up and strike your best pose. Take deep breaths and remember.
Don’t wait to start your dream projects on the premise that you don’t have the skills. Start your big project by planning what skill you need to develop in order to achieve it, research and practice those. Each will be a step not towards your big project but as part as your big project.
Establishing a clear battle plan that encompasses all the steps of the project that initially felt daunting helps realise that it is actually doable and only requires dedication. This in turn allows you to be more realistic about the work and effort you put into it and to be kinder to yourself.
But most importantly, remember that it is okay not to be an expert. If you really feel like an outsider faking that you know what you’re doing, take a step back. Outsiders often provide interesting ideas out of the box.
Embrace your doubt and use it. You feel terrifyingly illegitimate? Ask around and learn to accept constructive criticism. Ask questions, demand pointers, get feedback all through whatever it is that you feel illegitimate. Be vocal about feeling like an outsider.
In a society that praises confidence and extroversion, it is easy to feel inadequate, but the more we’ll talk about it, the least isolated we’ll feel in our struggle to recognise our worth and potential.

[i] The Imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention Pauline Rose Clance & Suzanne Imes, Georgia State University University Plaza Atlanta, Georgia 30303 https://www.paulineroseclance.com/pdf/ip_high_achieving_women.pdf

[ii] http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2017/05/the-neil-story-with-additional-footnote.html

[iii] Amy Cuddy : your body language can change who you are, TED Talk October 1st 2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc&list=PLqU1y-7uPYvTDcq8SK2fCFuSn4HvUyZW1&index=1

This article appeared in the third issue of Antigone, Centre & Margin. You can read it here.

I miss running

Yesterday I looked at the departure board and saw that my train was arriving.
And I ran.
I don't remember when the last time I ran was. But right there, I just bolted.
And suddenly the world came into focus.
Something lifted in my chest and I felt lighter.
I felt freer.
And I ran.
I ran and my lungs felt fuller.
My feet hit the ground and I felt bolder.

I am in good shape despite not having left the flat much in the last months.
But running is not about being in a good shape.
It triggers something else. Something stronger.
There is some kind of gleeful freedom in running.

Anger

Sometimes I have to remind myself that I must be strong and let myself being dominated by my emotions.
I am quick to anger and it burns so easily and so hot. This is not a fire I know how to put out. It's there, roaring and eating away at my insides while I do my best to breath in, breath out, count to ten, count to twenty, drown myself in numbers and try to ignore the obvious.
I am angry.
I am angry and I am frustrated.
I can't tell if I am being unfair or not. I don't think I am, but I have learnt to distrust myself enough that I don't know whether I am right or wrong.
But the anger it there.
And it hurts.
Don't be afraid, I will not let it affect me. You will not have to put up with it.
But know that deep down, that fire is still roaring hours later and I am not okay.

That taste of inadequation

I am not good at making friends.
I am very judgemental, and therefore very selective. I have little time and even less emotional energy.
So I shouldn't actually mind not having many friends because it means that the small number I have I can actually take care of.
And I do try not to mind.
I don't see them much but I think of them and send them trinkets and postcards and messages to show them I care. I don't know how to sustain a conversation so they often die out.
I have been trying to be more sociable but it doesn't seem to work really well.
I'm afraid I sound shallow.
Or too eager.
I don't know.
Why do I care so much, when I am not even being a good friend to the friends I have?
It doesn't make any sense.

The bitter feeling of purpose

The message started with "Professor" and in short it was a call for help.

I don't remember going through a lot of questioning about being a lesbian when I was a teen.
But then I don't have many memory of that period. It's all a bit vague and fuzzy. In the middle of the fog there will sometimes be a startlingly precise snapshot of a moment. Some good, but not many.
I don't really know how I came to term with loving women. I thought I was bi for a while.
But I don't remember struggling much about it. I had other more pressing matters that kept me busy enough with dread and despair.
I am one of the lucky ones. Though my coming out wasn't the smoothest, it did not have any long lasting consequences. But I have read, and I have witnessed and I have listened.
So when this kid came out to me, so shy they barely said anything, I tried my best.
I tried to be supportive, and reassuring, and helpful.
But we haven't been at school in weeks, so I hadn't had news from them in weeks.
Until yesterday.
In the evening I got a message for an unknown handle on Discord.
But it started with "Professor" and in short was a call for help.
So I stopped everything I was doing and tried my best.

My teen years were, to put it mildly a long and terrifying trek through hell and school had been the source of a non negligible amount of my problems.
I have been told that I am good at my job, and I think this is why.
I never received any formation on how to teach or how to be a teacher. I learnt on the job.
But I remember being a student. and not a good one at that.
I remember the tiredness, the mood swings, the lack of motivation, the stress, the anxiety.
I remember questioning what I looked like, what I wore, what I said, who were my friends.
I remember wanting to do good but being unable to do anything.
I remember the night spent waiting for sleep, and I remember the nightmares.
I remember the pain from the pit that was gaping in my stomach while I tried not to be too much of a disappointment.
I remember other things that I don't care to put into writing. I am at peace with who I was and what I did but it doesn't mean that I like dwelling on it.

So when I look at my students, all I can think of is:
Dear God, don't let them trudge through hell alone like I did.
Let me make their day just a little bit more bearable. Just a little more interesting. Just a little bit less lonely.
Let me spare just one kid from the hell I lived.
This is why I love my job.
It's terribly paid, very frustrating, incredibly draining. It's stressful and though I easily work 50 hours a week I keep hearing that teachers are all lazy.
But it gives me a sense of purpose.

The message started with "Professor" and in short it was a call for help.
So I answered.
To the best of my abilities.
I said Your health and your safety are what's more important.
I said I am proud of you for looking for help. It isn't easy, but you did, and I am glad for that.
I said I know it is hard and you hurt, but you don't have to be alone. There are people here for you. And I'll be one of them if you need me.
I said I know feeling lost in your own body, in your own mind, in your own identity is terrible and it feels hopeless, but I promise it isn't. I promise you will find yourself and you will find balance and you will be happy in the end. Don't lose hope.

There was a call for help and I tried my best.
If I can make their life just a little less terrifying, then it will have been entirely worth it to keep going when I, so many years ago felt like giving up.