My life’s not pretty right now.
I keep seeing that silly trend where you pretend your life is a Pinterest board and you take some aesthetic photos and voila! Inspiration. Beauty. Joy. Summer sun. And in theory, that is a fantastic way to romanticize your life…but right now, I can’t.
Can’t? Won’t? Which is it.
My camera roll has been bland for six months, maybe even more. I take photos when I travel, which is to say, the two times I’ve gone on vacation this year, but otherwise there isn’t much to photograph, to log, to document. I live life within the confines of my office at work, the walls of my dark and dingy apartment, the folds of my brain. I know there is beauty along the way - the light peeking through the trees on my commute, the neon signs at the bar I frequent on Monday nights for Ballad Bingo, my face when I look in the mirror at the end of a long day - but my god, it feels few and far between.
I can’t tell if this is a skill issue. I’ve been in other unromantic life phases in the past, and I used to do an excellent job framing my iPhone to capture a moment in time. There seemed to be ways to share my monotony in a cool way. I used to be able to romanticize life. But now that’s gone away.
Maybe it’s the 95º heat, maybe it’s the fact that I hate most of my clothes. Maybe it’s because I’m not sleeping well, don’t feel compelled to eat well, can’t bring myself to go out much. That summer depression is sneaking up on me again, and I want to pretend like I don’t notice it…but I do.
This isn’t to say there aren’t good things. I do find joy in the strangest of places now, if only because that’s the way to keep on living. You have to choose joy even when it seems pointless.
Maybe the best way to romanticize your life isn’t to photograph it, to write about it constantly, maybe it’s by meeting yourself where you’re at and knowing that there’s beauty in the mundane. Isn’t it lovely that you can do the same things over and over again when so many in the world do not get the privilege of routine? The traffic in the morning is romantic because what main character hasn’t gotten stuck driving to work? The ice cream you ate before your real dinner (real dinner tonight was a bagel by the way) is romantic because you’re just like that lost girl in the book you’re reading, too caught up in her life to make a real meal. Should we romanticize the trash in your kitchen? The dishes in the sink? The laundry you were supposed to do two weeks ago? Should we romanticize our boring times and our darkest nights and our lost days and our roaring questions?
Can I romanticize the twelve hours of television I watched? The hour I spend on lunch reading my Kindle in a room with no windows and fluorescent lighting? The hours I lay awake in bed, restless in the dark, waiting until I fall asleep long enough to jolt awake at four am because I thought someone was in my bedroom watching me? Can I romanticize the sticky sweaty feeling on my skin when I walk out the door? The discomfort I feel when I try to have an adult conversation with another person about how I feel?
Because in truth, the Pinterest-boardification of my life right now would look like underexposed dark rooms. Crumbs on the couch, shame at my temples, anxiety in my gut. It’s the same t-shirt and jeans and Reeboks combo, all a little rumpled, all a little dull. A non-cohesive playlist, a splattering of the new Gracie Abrams album and a small alt-rock band named mercury. and maybe even some ABBA songs. “Good Luck, Babe!” but maybe I’m speaking to another version of myself. It’s a feeling of being overstimulated by the world and underwhelmed by my relationships, if only because so many of my relationships are currently derailed by busy schedules and exhaustion. Frankly, it looks like scrolling obsessively through Tumblr, seeing the same twelve posts and the same three topics over and over and over again, escaping from the world through the happy place of my fictional worlds. It’s chips and peach salsa that I eat in the dark for dinner, a plain bagel with plain cream cheese (untoasted, still no toaster in my solo apartment), a scoop of mint-choco-chip ice cream because I deserve it. Plans to go to the climbing gym, driving thirty minutes there and back, using that alone time to pretend like I’m not overthinking everything I’ve ever been. The lights of the city in the background, taunting me with memories.
I am spending too much time in my mind to have a pretty life. And not in a fun way. Not in an inspiring way.
So I will pick up that book at lunch and turn on my show after work and remind myself that there’s nothing wrong with a year spent stuck in my head, even if it feels like I should be doing something.
“I am very young and I am learning how to live.”
this is so real and i love it. thank you for this🥺
I felt this on another level 🤍