Youthful Life: X

" Trust yourself. You’ve survived a lot, and you’ll survive whatever is coming." Robert Tew Knowing ourselves is one of the great mysteries of life. There is always and always more to uncover about who we are and who we believe ourselves to be. The reconciliation of those two makes for a challenge of lifelong proportions. As we have new experiences all of our past, our processing of said past, and the progress we have made since come together to inform our present selves. I have spent much of my adult life bracing for impact. I am just waiting in perpetual flinch for something to happen. I am wincing for a pain that I know inevitably will come. It's odd to live such a bright life with the conditioning that darkness is almost always just over the horizon. Call it pessimistic but I call it pragmatic. There have been so many moments of joy that were interrupted by heaviness that directly called me to attention.  One text message, a phone call, a tweet, and on, and on. Wheth...

"A wkward' is a ubiquitous teen word to denote socially unsanctioned behavior. It usually implies first- or secondhand embarrassment when you or a friend step outside the rules. Awkward doesn't sound overtly judgmental or negative; it's deliberately vague." Mary H.K. Choi I'm awkward . I'm nervous. I sweat a whole lot. I talk to myself way too much. I'm constantly in my own head trying to appear comfortable on the outside but I'm internally screaming. Why am I so awkward? Do other people notice how awkward I am? What can I do to be less ... well - awkward? These are the questions that play over and over in my head. I don't know what to do with my hands. I'm not really relaxed but I'm hoping other people perceive me to be. What should I say? When is my moment? Will anyone notice me? Does anyone care whether I'm here? Why does this look so easy for everyone else? Why not me? Social awkwardness is this self-induced purgatory of mo...

"Sometimes, how you ingest this idea of masculinity as projected onto you by the world could be the difference of life and death." Barry Jenkins We're bad with emotions , well most people that is. We don't know what to do with them. We keep them bottled up. We let them out in messy ways, usually accidentally. We're all over the place. We are emotionally unstable. Why? You tell me. Maybe you don't know, or maybe you do and you're not willing to share that truth with yourself. We are socialized in a myriad of ways (family/upbringing, friends, school, religion, media, etc.) to act and to not act. That is the impact of being taught to suppress your emotions. It might not have been direct but all the times you were told to stop being sensitive, to grow a backbone, to be strong, to stop crying, to get it together, to be man up, and the list goes on and on were the negative reinforcements of an ideology that asked you to shut down a critical part of your...