It hasn’t been a year since I left college yet I’ve gotten existential about the state to which we will all return to one day. Call it a quarter-life crisis or, as most millennials might recognize it, one of many evenings spent staring into darkness at 2 AM in the morning. But then again, I’ve lived long enough to know that I’ve never felt comfortable acting my age—having white hairs grow out of my head since elementary school certainly didn’t help to ease my anxieties about the future. And, of course, with everything going on in the world right now—something that I could easily say in just about any time in history—one starts to get used to the taste of dread. But then it occurs to me that it isn’t that bitter taste that’s bothering me nowadays but the realization that it might just be the norm. So, what’s there to do?

My current response to that question seems to be to inundate myself with work—convince myself that money is the priority during my best years and everything else follows. Thankfully, Discord with friends has me covered with keeping the mental faculties in my brain still functioning albeit if it’s through memes that could scare a psychologist and working remotely has the obvious perks one would expect. But the rest of the world, being able to just go out freely without fear of dying over some biblical bullshit or without being immediately reminded of how jagged the pills of reality actually are just seems impossible. Oh, and don’t get me started with my difficulties with dating (I’m cringing as I’m writing this bit but I’m leaving it in here because good writing is often honest writing) and how my pessimism towards people’s general selfishness and lack of empathy continues to dissuade me from even trying to meet new people. Why bother trying so hard with something that’s only going to hurt you? Why continue trying in hopes that that nerve inside you that craves a certain emotional warmth and mental connection with a special someone deadens over time until you settle with whoever you can find? Why don’t I just get back to work, save some money, write to the few kind strangers who continue to grace me with something as precious as time, and remain content with the economic benefits of being single?

That’s all pretty gloomy. Why not blow off some steam with friends? Play games, watch movies, and talk shit about anything and everything. Keeping that sort of you thing and making it into a routine is pretty good especially with the people I’m with. However, later in my life, unlike my childhood days of frequent location changes, I get to really know those sorts of friends like family even if they don’t reciprocate nor observe the same as I do. Late night paranoia might pay me a visit here and there casting doubt—or relaying a reminder from my gut—that the people I feel most comfortable with might just see me as nothing more than a friendly nuisance, nothing more than someone to keep them entertained for an evening. But then I go to bed, let logic set in and remember that I try not to associate with sociopaths or anyone who looks like they star in Euphoria (lest I lose my title of being “the pretty one” in my friend group because lord knows an English major isn’t going to get any intellectual respect from a group computer science majors).

In just about 500 words, I’ve described most of my daily routine and current grievances in my life ever since I left college and I’m frightened that this will be all there is that my life has to offer—working hard with little progress, confinement at every corner, and life imprisonment through monotony. And many wonder I even dare to try hard with anything rather than trying be happy with what I have right now. I’m not happy and I’m pretty sure that I’ve only known the taste of pure unadulterated gladness concentrate on a few occasions and only for a handful of moments. I want to feel happy again and I don’t care how much mental pain I have to put myself through to achieve that sort of thing again. And it really seems that, with everything still going on, it feels like the only thing that I really have control over in my life right now—that and trying to do the bare minimum to be a decent human being on a daily basis.

Thank you for reading this edition of The Morning Owl. If you liked what you saw here, please leave a like, subscribe, leave a comment, and share this newsletter. Until we meet again, do take care.

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