nova says too much

Since freshman year, I have felt that having no stress is the equivalent to being unproductive. Because there is always more to do.

There are things that I should be doing, but am not doing. There are things that I'm not doing well enough. There are things that I have tried to do and have failed.

People who say that comparison is an avoidable, unproductive activity have clearly never been an American high school student aiming for a top school.

The pressure, truly, is overwhelming.

The funny thing is, my parents never cared about college at first. Their only requirement was that I went. Somewhere. Anywhere.

But as soon as I made the fatal mistake of caring- semester one of freshman year, after remembering how much I enjoyed academics and how much I wanted to invest into a successful, high-quality college career- they began caring too.

I went from explaining what an AP class was to my father to him demanding I tell him how much I've been studying before my exams.

I know that this is because they care. As we tour the ivy leagues, they have seen how driven I am to succeed at this goal, which makes them driven for me to succeed as well.

And as I've made friends with who I've made friends with- cementing myself as a part of the top ten percent: those who all know each other and although we are friends, also know that we are competing with each other for the highly selective spots at the top schools- something else also demands a portion of my time. Jealousy. My copious amounts of it are beginning to appear neverending.

When someone else gets the internship that you found out that you are both applying for. Or at our annual awards night when, even though you received a prestigious award from a college's alumni club, your friend received one from an even more prestigious college. Or (God forbid) SAT score gaps.

The other truth is, is that I'm tired.

I no longer have the inherent motivation to study for five hours a day as soon as I get home for school. Or complete my Summer homework the day after school ends. Or tirelessly work through all hours of the day without fear, reaching after goals and ambitions as if they already belong to me.

I don't know what it is, but it is as if something within me is stopping me, no matter how much I desire the thrill of leaping through the finish line with first place, I am sprinting, and my legs are growing weary.

There is always more I can do. And it feels as if I'm not doing it. And even though I'm aware of it, I'm not stopping.

It's as if I am actively running in the opposite direction of the race. There's a summer program that I really wanted to apply to. The application is due and five days. And for some strange reason, I'm not doing it.

Because, for some strange reason, I am self sabotaging enough to believe that everything will still work out for me perfectly if I always avoid what is making me scared.

I've never thought of myself as someone who is afraid of failure. But I am beginning to suspect that this is a struggle that has become something more elusive and pervasive, yet damaging all the same.

I went to a poetry reading the other day. A teacher at my highschool, who I knew through my work with Shakespeare performances, had released a book of poetry and I was invited to attend a reading in which he detailed his progression as a poet from his early teenage years to now, at his retirement.

At this reading, he read the first poem that he had ever written about sex, at age fourteen on the back of an unfolded Marlboro Red canister.

"Every poet," he said, "Must decide how they feel about sex and how they will write about it."

This was an aspect of the reading that I considered on the drive home. I write about sex how most teenage girls would write about sex: something fitful and far away. No matter how many sexual experiences we've had, it doesn't seem to have reached the finality of it being comfortable.

To implore young people to ignore the concept is ignorant. Young people have sex, and have always had sex.

But to paint sex as an ideal utopian sensation is where media is led astray. Especially, for teenage girls.

Does 'sex' define adulthood? Is it a pillar that seventeen and eighteen and nineteen year olds touch as the exit the temple of childhood? Or is irrelevant entirely: dramatized by old Catholicism and further tainted by modern ideas of virginity and 'rights of passage?

My initial reasoning has always been that each person should define these truths for themselves. That sex can mean whatever you want it to mean at any given point in time with any given person.

But when you've barely been able to write down a definition in your own dictionary is it a crime to look in a thesaurus first?

As a feminist, sex seems to be bridled with a million perspectives. Sex is empowering, and gives women the opportunity to embrace their own pleasure and seek control over their own bodies.

But at the same time it tends to feel like an inherent betrayal to 'give' something so personal to a man, no matter how archaic an ideal that this guilt is derived from.

The week after I started dating a man for the first time and after he saw me shirtless in the back of his car late at night in an abandoned parking lot, I felt a deep sadness and shame that seemed to sit itself comfortably yet deep in the confines of my chest.

It was also that same week that he saw 'why do i feel so guilty about sex' in my search history, and, mercifully, decided not to comment on it.

Because sex is such a broad concept, it's difficult to label it under specific scriptures that one 'should' feel about it. Although I believe that it's important to decipher one's relationship with sex, how can you place it into a simple category of emotions when it is barely agreed upon what sex even is?

I'm writing this as if sex is irrevocably essential to society. As if it is cruel that we have collectively decided that it should be placed on such as pedestal in the midst of our everyday lives.

But aren't I the one deciding that I need to think about it? Aren't I the one waiting for the day that pleasure arrives untainted and without pain?

Is the reason that teenagers have so much sex because we are rushing to understand it?

To decide what makes it so essential to poetry, and what kind of verse it requires?

When I was in second grade, amidst a classroom of children hunched over a complicated worksheet or picture book, it was a regular routine for the children to stumble up to our teacher's desk to ask what a word was and what it meant.

It was also normal for the teacher to promptly send them to my desk instead, creating a long line of second graders, spanning the length of the classroom, tapping my shoulder and asking me to sound out their vocabulary.

A fanciful story: one that I don't tell often.

The truth is, I think that I was happy that all of my peers came to talk to me' until the teacher noticed the length of the queue and beckoned a few of her student's to return to her office chair and glossy framed photos of grandchildren.

Were all of the children pleased at the blatant favoritism? Not exactly. Being the teacher's pet from the ages of kindergarten to fifth grade just about only won you favors with the teacher. Even now, I feel pretentious and stuck up bragging about the teacher pulling me aside to give me extra work or sending me on errands while other children were admonished for their behavior.

Also in second grade, I gathered, along with everybody else in my class, to listen to the most well-liked girl read aloud a list that she made of all of her friends in the class. Unsurprisingly, it went like this: two boys, and all of the girls- except myself.

Of course, I've grown beyond petty lists and woodchips being thrown at the playground.

I have my fair share of friends. While not considered popular, I'm friends with popular people. I'm busy on weekends, I go to parties, I get tagged in photo dumps on Instagram, and I'll be chatted with if I run into someone in the bathroom.

That doesn't mean I'm considered largely as exacting normal, either.

Distinctly, my voice has always been different.

And no matter how annoying it makes me sound, the truth is is that I've always read and written more than my peers, and it has provided a constant shaping of my vocabulary.

Really, I don't talk any different than what I read or how I write these posts.

It's not purposeful. I don't notice it at all until someone repeats a word I say mockingly or someone half-jokes, half-compliments about me being 'eloquent', or makes some other comment about how articulated I speak.

It's something small, but something that I always notice.

When I try and join a discussion with a group of people that I might not have talked to, it's stuck like a thorn in my mouth that I never notice but constantly feel the ache of. When I watch mouths tick up when I use a certain word, or get told to slow down when I'm telling a story.

It's hard to make genuine connections with people my age when they do not understand what I'm saying, and I don't understand what they are saying either.

Because this is not a one sided predicament.

I have to watch the guilt on people's faces when I have to ask what they mean by telling me that 'I'm good for it' or asking me if I'm still in 'Virginia'.

While it may sound like a Disney Channel conflict, it creates a literal sound barrier between me and others.

It makes me feel awkward and clunky. It should be easy to adjust my speech patterns, but it's hard to make myself constantly aware of how I am unknowingly speaking.

Even if it doesn't automatically create awkward situations, it makes already awkward situations feel significantly worse and far more palpable.

This is not to appear unself-aware. I should be making constant efforts to accessibly communicate with others. But sometimes I wish that we were all reading out of the same dictionary.

A part of the reason that I have spent so much time working to get into a pretentious, literature-focused college, is out of a feeble attempt to not have to make people lend me a thesaurus, or vice versa.

I want to be able to connect with people that I would choose to connect with, not just the people who all happen to be moved by their parents to the same suburban town where we all happen to attend the same suburban public school system.

That's also not to say that I'm ungrateful for the unlikely friendships and relationships I've formed. Speaking the same language isn't on a basis necessary for communicating successfully. And how one speaks is not a sole dictatory of one's intelligence.

But, I do hope to find a group of people who have always talked like I do. If for anything, just out of curiosity to see what kinds of conversation we have, and how we convey our thoughts and feelings to each other.

My mom always laughs at me when I tell her that I'm watching a new show.

"Really?" she'll say. "I mean, I'm not surprised. It's so '90s."

I've seen Daria more times than I can count. I'm a Buffy enthusiast and a Twin Peaks dedicate. I have a taste for basic yet underrated shows.

I'm also a regular fandom stalker. It doesn't consume my life, but it has also been a constant, distant component. As in, I was born in 2009 and I have also been on fanfiction.net.

When I watch a Sit-Com or a long T.V. show, it is practically my religion. I've never lived in an 'eat dinner together' kind of family, and instead of regular kitchen chatter my loyal mealtime companion has always been a T.V. show, and, most consistently, a Sit-Com. From Daria to Gilmore Girls, from the pilot episode to the last season on my fifth rewatch, they will always instill me with fierce opinions, fierce protections of my favorite characters (show out Jess, shout out Jane) and a reassurance that I will never have to run out of content because when you're watching a '90s Sit-Com, you know that your seventh rewatch will be just as enjoyable as the first.

This is largely because way-back-when, fandom and the internet was different. You weren't able to log onto Ao3 or Tumblr the day after Off Campus or Heated Rivalry was released and discover thousands of artists that have already supplied the demand for more content with your beloved plot lines or characters.

Rather than extensive promotions and cast interviews, the show runners had to be more diligent in making sure that their television was both long lasting, extensive, and not only attention grabbing (as is the necessity in an unavoidable age of AI and temporary dopamine hits) but also attention keeping.

That's not to say that fandom didn't exist. Fandoms can, and have been, born out of literally nothing.

When I finished Daria for the first time, I was desperate to speak about the complicated dynamics and social commentary packed between the creases of unforgettable voice acting and simple animation. Despite immediately following the tag on Tumblr, no content ever showed up on my feed. Ao3, while showcasing talent from a variety of dedicated writers, was not the goldmine that I was used to being able to access at my fingertips.

I dug deeper.

I had a question about one of the episodes, and after typing it into Google, I found an extensive Reddit link to answer my question, as is the usual. After my inquiry was answered, I decided to wander around the r/Daria thread more, which led me further down my own rabbit hole.

Along with a Daria dedicated podcast and a secretive cult following fanbase, I discovered somethings a lot more interesting.

I'm sure that some would role their eyes at my excitement at such a discovery, but as an almost-Gen-Alpha baby, you can't blame my fascination.

I found a treasure trove of Daria dedicated websites. These websites (often hand-made, and more often then not abandoned or closed down, or even replications of their original forms) had retro tabs dedicated to Daria information, fanart, fanfiction, games, discussion threads, and, most fascinating to me, published essays by numerous individuals about the content, plot, and analysis of their beloved show.

What this reminded me was that fandom has not only had a decades long existence, but that, at its core, fandom is truly a hobby, and one that people willingly provide quality media for out of pure curiosity and fascination. These people dedicated severe time and effort into their passion for this show, creating an actual community, despite limited accessible resources, that was truly about creative freedom and self-fulfillment. It was, more than anything, almost self-indulgent in a way that I found very beautiful. Daria fans were truly in it for the love of the game.

On Outpost Daria Reborn, I found petitions, short-films, and re-designs, all reflecting each contributors' person beliefs, opinions, passions, and hobbies, all in their spare time after school or work.

From scratch, fandom persevered itself into existence far before when people became adjusted to being served content on an almost literal silver platter.

This reminded me that the internet is truly a place of connection, and while the names that we see pop up on the screen everyday that we numbly register as another fan or contributor to our favorite fandom, or T.V. show, or movie, or book, they are strangers that across time and space we have made the privilege of connecting with and sharing, despite the plausible numerous differences, a passion for a random '90s television show. A show that we should feel grateful that other people also appreciate and are willing to help create a safe space online to nerd out about.

Nerd culture is truly about community and perseverance, especially throughout such a delicate creature such as the internet, we should pay each other the same respects that we would have forty years ago, if we crossed paths on a glitchy fandom website in the '90s, trying to find other people who are also committed to the story and (while distant) strong relationships that fandom gives us.