At the end of my third year in college, I wrote:
I feel like there’s always a point in every year where I need to step away from toxic people and bad habits, and maybe lie on my living room floor and stare up at the ceiling having a heart wrenching existential crisis with Mogwai playing in the background (because yes that’s exactly what I’ve been doing for the past half hour).
My third year is coming to a close and I’m swept over with feelings of you should have done this, you should not have done that, why didn’t you do those things, why didn’t you go out with those people, why did you skip those readings… why have you let yourself become so mediocre?
Mediocrity used to be my greatest fear. The thought of being average at anything I loved made me sick to my stomach, because if you’re going to do something you might as well do it right. But at the end of every semester I have these, “Why are you so mediocre?” talks with myself as I break down over finals. Perhaps it’s a vicious cycle, perhaps I am mediocre, perhaps this is my way of pushing myself, perhaps I just get unhinged during finals. Perhaps I’m just unhinged all the time and finals gives me a reason to really go at myself.
I’m not too sure what I’m trying to say. I’m kinda just really achy and I’ve moved my futon to the living room to study and there are papers and books and notes everywhere, but all I’ve been doing is staring at my ceiling contemplating the merits of mediocrity.
Sometimes I forget how much finals week messes with my head, until it comes around again every semester. And I find myself laying on my living room floor, twirling my fingers through my hair, listening to quiet instrumentals and wishing I’d done more readings and wishing I didn’t have to google “Opposite of mediocre” to remember what it is.
Though it’s been 10 years, I still find myself contemplating the merits of mediocrity. Still twirling my fingers through my hair, listening to quiet instrumentals. Though it all comes with less of a panic. Less of the dull ache. It feels more like I’m sifting my fingers through sand and finding my way closer to an answer. Slow, deliberate.
I was 20, completely broke, and careening toward full-on anxiety attacks most days. Depressed that my dream city and school weren’t all I imagined they would be. Heartbroken that there wasn’t much left in my hometown to love either. Terrified at the thought of being mediocre.
What I realize now, after 10 years, is that I was not afraid of mediocrity. I was afraid my life was small. I spent much of my childhood and adolescence escaping my own life by getting lost in books. Devoured heartbreaking prose until I could feel the ache in my own bones, let myself be swept away on adventures, found out what love meant through different eyes. I found worlds bigger than mine by reading them, until I could finally run away from home, from my small life. Fully convinced the Big Life was waiting for me somewhere else.
Away from home, I was confronted with the reality of a life I made small. I fell hard into the academics of Cal, maybe buying into the idea that I didn’t belong there, and realized I had to fight for my spot at school and at large. I convinced myself I didn’t belong, that my little life didn’t have a place amongst the ambition of everyone else. Ambition big enough to smother mine.
A little life. I’ve been flipping the words around in my head for weeks, palming them, twisting and pulling, and hoping to figure out why they mean something so different now.
In the ten years since I wrote that entry, I’ve re-examined and deconstructed my idea of mediocrity, disabused myself from hustle culture, and learned the beauty of a little life. Allowed myself to be comfortable in my own ambition, figured out how to stop clenching my teeth, and learned to let go.
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It’s been more than two years since I sat down and wrote anything for this site. I couldn’t tell you why I took such a long time away. I couldn’t really tell you why I’ve taken all the other posts down either, why it was so easy to shelve away the part of me that was most important for so long. The part of me that voraciously tore through books on hot summer days while on break, that wrote through journals and stories and head canons. I once wrote that words were the only thing that’s always been there for me; how I may not survive without them. And now, I can’t quite tell you why they fell out of my life so fully.
It was a slow undoing, I think. Like leaving from your hometown. One day you’re aching to go back and the next you forget to be wistful, forget it was something you loved.
Truthfully, words fell out of my life after mom died, along with so many other parts of me that seemed so intrinsic. People I knew, things I loved, places I ached for. They all fell away, sometimes quietly and other times with thunder. I suppose the last two years have been the process of putting it all back together. Not in an attempt to bring it all back but to remember what I loved about it all in the first place, like visiting home. Digging your heels into the familiar places and realizing nothing ever keeps the same face.
If so many of the past seven years have been a slow undoing, the last two years have felt like a reprisal. An intrepid becoming. It’s felt like coming home.
That’s all to say: welcome back. To you and to me.
This is a newsletter-ish post I’ll be publishing every month. Writing, pictures, book recommendations, music you should listen to, stories you should hear. All things I’d like to share from my little life to yours.
(2024 so far, pictured)
(a list of good things)
Books:
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro — A tightly written, subtle, heart breaking story that cracks open slowly but is so expertly written you feel like you know more about these characters than they can know about themselves. It’s soft sci-fi, or whatever the hell is opposite of Hard SciFi. It’s human and it’s tender and it’s an amazing read.
Podcasts
The Retrievals — A group of women who visit a Yale fertility clinic experience excrutiating pain during their egg retrieval procedure and this podcast uncovers the truth. It’s an expansive commentary on how we view women’s pain, particularly when the weight of motherhood is on the line. Everyone should listen. (Podcast)
Dear Alana, — Alana Chen loved God and also loved women. Through interviews with the people in her life and excerpts from her journals, we get a very intimate and incredibly important discussion of how religious trauma affects the queer community. It’s equal parts amazing and devastating to hear Alana through her own words, and how she wanted so much to just love and be loved. (Podcast | AlanaFaithChen.org)
Movies
Dune Part 2 - Enough people have heard me fawn over this movie. So - just watch it. In IMAX.
Arrival — After you watch Dune, rent Arrival and watch that too. It’s my favorite movie from the same director and the reason he’s my favorite. It’s quiet, atmospheric, and deeply human. Denis Villaneuve is the best sci-fi director of this generation. Argue with your mother.
The French Dispatch — Yes, I went on a Wes Anderson binge in March. Yes, of course I would be a fan of Wes Anderson. Yes this is my recent favorite from him.
Music
Albums that have kept me company this month:
Asphalt Meadows - Death Cab for Cutie
22 - Hyukoh
Love and Compromise - Mahalia
Woodland - The Paper Kites
Fave Creator in March:
Rose (@mtcha.milky)— She makes short little day-in-the-life tiktoks that mostly consist of her typing, making coffee, and driving to work. Watching them makes me want to be productive. She’s great.
Thanks for reading. Wishing you a warm start to your spring season.