itβs really so silly bc when I was a very sad teenager I dreamed of my adult life as this beautiful, easy thing where I dance in my kitchen and have game nights with my friends and I travel around to see the world and I create things left and right and I follow my heart and find a community that welcomes me readily as I embrace them
And then I grew up and it turns out the world is going to shit and thereβs a class war everywhere and my livelihood is under constant threat because I wasnβt lucky enough to be born into generational wealth and climate change is coming fast and god, the powerful are so selfish and and and- and yet, I do still dance in my kitchen. Sometimes my cat asks to be picked up and I sway around in a made up waltz with her tucked into my arms. (This is one of her favorite activities)
I play card games and gossip and watch movies with my friends every few Saturdays even though weβre all overworked and exhausted. i create things in the pockets of time between sleep and work and sometimes I create while Iβm at work and I race home to finish it with a childlike sort of excitement. Iβve seen very little of the world but itβs still more than most of my family has. and these things are still just as wonderful as I dreamed theyβd be, itβs just that theyβre grounded firmly in a reality thatβs harder to thrive in.
it makes me sad, because I feel like a lot of people are grappling with how much more difficult it is these days to create a life you survived for. And it can feel sometimes like it was all for nothing- all that stubborn determination to stay alive and keep trying, keep going got us to a world on fire, with all the folks who could do anything about it shrugging and saying no, nothing can be done, itβs too late, itβs just how things are.
Except it isnβt. There will always be dancing, there will always be companionship, there will always be room for hope. Itβs never useless to hope for a better life. Itβs never useless to believe it can be.
My teenage self wasnβt wrong about that.
