The age of ambivalence
We were young, but we were also old.
We were following our hearts, but we had no idea what we were doing with our lives.
We were happy, sometimes, on an idle Tuesday morning, after a good sleep, when the weather was pleasant and the future was full of promise, of short and long-term plans. But we were also miserable. On a Thursday afternoon, when just lifting off a limb required too much effort, when we were too exhausted to move, to sleep, or even cry.
We were in long-term relationships, but we were perpetually questioning them. Was there a better one we could be in, just around the corner?
We had doubts about our doubts.
We were worried about eating too much, but we also worried about eating too little. Sometimes we felt our bums were too flat, sometimes we pinched the fat on our upper arms. Sometimes we felt our meal had been too sugary, too salty, and worried about that; other times we were dissatisfied that our food had had no flavour. Wasn’t life too short for flavourless meals?
We loved our friends, we thought we were lucky to have them. But sometimes we judged them. We wanted to tell them just how unearned their confidence was, how obvious their relationship issues, how badly they dressed. The thought of telling them felt like popping bubble wrap. Then we felt bad. We wondered if exhaustion had made us irritable or if we were bad people. We wondered what made people bad.
We loved putting makeup on, but we hated taking it off.
We wanted kids. We wanted kids badly. Truly, was the point of life anything different than a full bed on a Sunday morning? People to sing the same songs with in the car over and over again? To have little idiosyncratic ‘traditions’ with, such as always going to the same restaurant, and then for the same ice-cream on the same day of the week? But we also didn’t want kids. It terrified us. It seemed irresponsible. We couldn’t take care of ourselves, how were we to take care of another human being? There just weren’t enough hours in the day for kids. We had to be selfish for a while. We had to have careers first.
We didn’t want to work corporate jobs. Oh no. We knew better than to buy into the idealisation of the corporate world from 90s cinema. We weren’t going to sell our souls to the Devil or climb the corporate ladder, one wrinkle at a time. We weren’t going to waste our talent, our creative power, writing copy for sandwich cookie ads, making money for someone who already had enough of it as it is. We wanted to find our purpose. Fulfil our potential. But we also wanted money, because we liked nice things.
We were okay with being housewives. As long as we paid our own bills, made a living out of our hobbies, and felt independent.
We wanted loving relationships that felt like a safe haven. Somewhere where we felt accepted with our frizzy hair, wide pores, and neurotic characters. Somewhere we felt at home. But we also wanted to go on dates, to be in love every day of our lives, to feel the butterflies in our stomach as we painted our lips red for yet another night out, high on mystery and possibility. We wanted to be surprised, we wanted novelty.
We knew better than to burn out. We’d been there before. We knew all about healing our nervous systems, how trauma is stored in the body. We wanted to prioritise our mental health. But we also believed that anything worth having destabilised your life, that life was one big stove, where each quadrant represents: family, friends, health, and work. If we wanted to be successful, we needed to eliminate one. But if we wanted to be really successful (which we did), we needed to eliminate two.
We loved social media. The memes that could make us laugh and feel seen, the memes that strengthened our camaraderie with others, and made us feel like insiders. The documenting of our little, insignificant lives that gave us the thrill of fake fame. The “pre” selfies that energised a night out, made it at least six times more exciting. (We were optimising our time, maximising our looks and our effort, receiving compliments in two worlds simultaneously: the real one and the virtual one.)
But we also hated social media. There was no quicker way to descend from okayness into an abyss of misery within seconds than by opening Instagram. To feel judged about your lifestyle, your relationship, your diet, your looks. We were sure the algorithm did it on purpose, fueling our self-hatred, keeping us in the abyss, powerless to resist our dopamine hit.
We knew success is not the most important thing. We knew there were many forms of it. But we also knew it had no weight to say it, unless we were successful.
We wanted to grow, we wanted to change, and to be challenged. But we also wanted to stay right here, in our comfort zones. Because… it was more comfy.
We felt lonely and disconnected. We wanted to meet with our friends, we really did. But only if it was hypothetical, at least a week from today, and between 6 pm and 9 pm on a Friday.
People often accused us of not knowing what we want. We denied it. Of course, we knew what we want. It just varied from time to time.