Out: Looking For Myself

on turning 26, crashing out, and the pain of finding yourself

“So a day when you’ve lost yourself completely / Could be a night when your life ends / Such a heart that will lead you to deceiving / All the pain held in”

- The All-American Rejects “Move Along”

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything.

I want to tell you about all the posts I’ve started and didn’t finish (51, according to the little number in the drafts section of Substack). But it just makes me feel like a loser ex-boyfriend, reaching out with another lame apology for why he hurt you, why he sucks, why he “can’t seem to get his life together right now”, that you know isn’t really for you. It’s for him. It’s to make himself feel better. And now, he’s dragging you through that mud all over again, just when you thought you’d finally rid yourself of the stains he’d left streaking down your favorite ripped jeans.

The truth is always far simpler than those long-winded texts, though. And the truth is, I haven’t wanted to.

Well, I do want to. Or at least, I want to want to. It just makes me too sad, so I don’t, which I think sums up the last six months of my life.

Actually, if I were to really sum up the last six months—maybe more like eight, or 10, or the last year—it would be that meme that says “Crash out, queen. You earned it.” Except I’ve been crashing out so much it’s practically a part of my routine now.

Crash out meme of a cat with text over it. Originally posted on Instagram by literallymecats

Lately, it feels like we’ve all been crashing out. Even my friends have had their own crash-out episodes, and whenever I feel as though my life is a mess I’ll never be able to clean up, some meme page will find me and make me feel like we’re all collectively going through the same things. I’ve yet to decide whether or not this is a good thing. I mean, we’re all either so chronically online, we’re keeping ourselves from truly living our lives, or we’ve created a beautiful community. I tend to lean toward the former, but the nuances of our increasingly online world still allude me.

Either way, crashing out has become a part of our vocabulary. I think it’s the only way we can describe what we’ve been feeling, given our current political climate. But even personally, it’s felt as though my life is falling apart.

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For the past three years, I’ve been traveling on and off. Though it’s probably not what you’re imagining. I’m not living off a trust fund, nor am I a spontaneous backpacker. I’ve learned how to pack only the essentials, but those essentials still sometimes include a sample-sized perfume and my full-sized Tarte eyeshadow palette because “what if we go out to a fancy restaurant one night?” (a truly serious problem for the alternate reality version of myself that can afford to eat at a nice restaurant). I was just lucky. Lucky that I was born with a mom who happens to work for United. Lucky that that means I get to travel for free until I’m 26.

lucky, lucky, privileged, lucky.

It is, undoubtedly, a privilege that I’ve been able to do this at all, though. That my parents were kind and financially stable enough to support me every time I came back for a few months before I’d run off on another weeks-long trip.

I told myself I was doing it because it was what I always wanted, that I couldn’t pass up this opportunity, but now that I’m turning 26 and my free travel trial is up, I realize how untrue that is.

I’m too exhausted to go on another trip. That version of myself has long since passed out on the bottom bunk of a shared hostel room somewhere (a place I never wish to go back to). But a few weeks ago, while talking to my friend over FaceTime, she told me to come visit her, and for a moment, I thought about it. One last (last) trip to London. It all became clear as she soothingly told me about all the things we’d do: the cafés, picnics, pottery shops & street markets, and mid-day glasses of wine—or should I say bottles?

Amidst the plans and dumb jokes we made to each other, I didn’t feel so heavy. I had no real desire to go on another trip, but the thought of being anywhere but here was enough to tempt me. It was no longer about travel, about satisfying that itch to see new places and experience new things. I just wanted a quick fix for what I felt had become the train wreck that is my life.

I told all this to another friend one night. Unsure how to explain what I’d been feeling, I frantically looked around my room, as if the explanation were hiding amongst the piles of books stacked on each wall. I looked specifically in these places, I think, because they used to feel like me. But these things that once made me feel whole now felt foreign, as if I didn’t know what I was looking at.

Between all the travel, outings, weekend jobs, family & personal things, volunteer editing work, and more, I realize I haven’t been alone with myself in a long, long time. I’ve been rushing around so much, grasping at every experience that might bring me closer to who I wanted to be—who I thought I was supposed to be—that I no longer know where I am, or what I’m left with. I don’t know where that girl who used to curl up on the couch and read through the noise of the TV has gone.

And it’s become too painful to try to find her again.

I’m reminded of that scene toward the end of La La Land, where, after years of trying to make her dreams of becoming an actress come true, Mia finally gives up, telling Ryan Gosling (tbh I might not mind crashing out if Ryan Gosling were there), “I think it hurts a little bit too much.” Or that scene in season five, episode nine of Girls, when Hannah, the main character, adamantly declares she’s quit writing altogether (even to-do lists). But we all crash out, and sometimes we need to so we can pick ourselves back up.

I’ve yet to finish Girls, so I don’t know whether or not Hannah finds her way back to writing, but there is at least some light at the end of the tunnel for Mia, even if the ending of the movie casts a heartbreaking shadow over it. I think that’s why I love it, though.

But lately, I’ve felt like I’m stuck in a hole with no other way out, except to claw my way back to the surface. Occasionally, I get a burst of energy to do something about it, before sinking down further into my own hopelessness.

A friend once told me that maybe this is where I need to be. “Maybe you just need to let yourself be lost right now.”

I know, eventually, I’m going to pull myself back out, but I think, now, I’m afraid of who I’m going to find when I do.

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These are a few of the songs I’ve been listening to lately that helped inspire this post. If you’ve been following along with me for a while, you’ll know that most of what I write is inspired by music. This time it wasn’t just one song, it was a collection of them, but these are the top 3 I’ve been listening to lately that really influenced this post!

Feel free to also follow me on Spotify if you want to see what else I’ve been listening to!