Just Existing

This past year and a bit has been nothing but mystifying *well duh, some random pathogen has been ruining our lives*

It's safe to say that everyone has just been existing, floating... disorientated. 

Well, try being a millennium baby and living through a global pandemic, when you were already all of those things to begin with. 

After coming home from the most atrocious day out and unpromising start to my hot girl summer, I realised that, unfortunately, life getting back to normal won't magically cure me of: 'I-have-no-clue-what-i-am-doing-itis'.

I guess that when you reach 20, putting yourself out there doesn't become any less horrific! Every time I step outside of my comfort zone, I feel like I need to hit the emergency erase button and change my hair colour or name - nowadays, whilst blasting Jealousy Jealousy by Olivia Rodrigo of course. 

I always assumed that adulthood would be a huge stepping stone towards self-assurance, confidence and a super zen presence of mind. Like you just sort of 'fake it til you make it', which is all well and good until you lose sight of who you really are, or at least who you used to be. 

When we were locked away in our homes we had no choice but to reconnect with our true selves. There wasn't really anyone to impress once we'd shut down our laptops and turned off our phones. Just the people who'd seen us at our worst - and loved us anyway. 

There was no searching for approval, and as the world is opening up, I find myself searching for that again. 

The somewhat abrupt shift from 'just existing' to making the most of everything is bound to trigger a plethora of premature quarter-life crises. I'm more than prepared to be a shoulder to cry on, whilst crying on someone else's, about the fact that we were thrust into our 20s far too soon. We just didn't really get to be nineteen or say goodbye to being a kid. Grossly unfair if you ask me. 

Although I'm complaining in this blog post (because let's be real, when am I not). I sincerely want to try this thing that I think adults do: focusing on the positives and everything one has to be grateful for - surviving a pandemic being one of them. Something that I've learnt amongst the uncertainty and chaos is that acknowledging worries and fears is the first step towards extinguishing them. I'm going to keep putting myself out there and I'm going to give entering this new phase of existence, my very best shot.

"You don't have to lose the girl to become the woman", after all - perhaps a gossip girl quote, but it sounds intellectual so we needn't focus on that. 

the ocean is strong as f**k and feminine as f**k and both are what makes the ocean the ocean

Bonjour mes amis! Did you miss me? 

Rhetorical question - don't answer that 

Today I wanted to talk to you all about femininity. 

The purple, trippy posters dotted around my bedroom would tell you that I've just recently become obsessed with HBO's Euphoria. 

But not for reasons that one might expect. 

I decided to watch Euphoria for Maddy's wardrobe and the glittery makeup but ended up being blown away by Jules' exploration of womanhood. In some parts, I truly felt seen - like she had read my mind.

 

On-screen and in a way that's relevant to right now, we see a young woman come to the realisation that building a life around "what men want philosophically" is the biggest scam. 

This isn't your typical men are trash moment, but a candid critique of what women have always been told is important: other people before ourselves, other people's desires before our own and upholding others' expectations of who we're meant to be. 

It's exhausting, making decision after decision based off' how we'll be perceived rather than what we want as individuals. Considering that most women have been raised this way by society (a collective generational curse if you will) it's a monstrously difficult habit to shake. Hence why it was so empowering to watch Jules actively plan to shake up the patriarchy on her terms. If you've watched Euphoria *which you totally should because hellooo who hasn't* then you'll remember Nate's gross list defining what he liked and didn't like in girls: 

"He liked tennis skirts and jean-cut-offs (but not the kind so short you could see the pockets), ballet flats and heels, sandals worn with a fresh pedicure, thigh gaps, tan lines, long necks, slender shoulders, good posture, fruit-scented body mist, full lips, small noses, and lacy chokers. He disliked sneakers, dress shoes, cankles, girls who sat like boys, talked like boys, [and] acted like boys, and body hair."

In F**k Anyone Who's Not a Sea Blob, Jules starts to unravel everything that she knows about being a girl and discovers the layers that exist within the experience. In a beautifully cyclical way, she destroys Nate's misogynistic criteria for life, ensuring that it crashes onto the floor in meaningless smithereens. 

When she said "how... did I spend my entire life building this?" it set off a bunch of flashing lights in my brain. A heightened awareness that how we've been conditioned to behave is all wrong, and the recognition that perhaps there are even more dimensions to womanhood that we haven't dared to uncover. The parts of womanhood that Jules feels so closely to her as a trans woman. The parts that she feels can even transcend physical classifications of what our genders are and what they mean. The broad and deep parts of our gender identity that some people can experience as purely indefinable by our anatomy. According to Jules' experience, gender as a fixed binary is far too simple. A rigid set of rules determined by the *shudder* Nate Jacobs of the world. 

I think I enjoyed learning about Jules' character so much because she was just a breath of fresh air. She's kinda like a glittery, colourful fairy who doesn't have a final level that she's working towards until its game over. She just keeps "levelling up" as she calls it and pushing at the bounds of who and what she can be. I love that - maybe I'll start telling people that I'm just collecting potions to up my mana when asked about my goals and ambitions. 

I'm going to leave you with my favourite scene of all time from Euphoria (which has nothing to do with how much I love Rue's outfit and Jules' hair) - Enjoy xx 

pic.twitter.com/WcNriMRcCk

— out of context euphoria (@ooceuphoria) August 4, 2020