This is something I learned only recently. I wish I’d learned it early. It is this: no one on this planet knows what they’re doing. We’re all confused. Very little matches up (and yet our brains try valiantly to slot all the bits together in patterns).
And this is the salient bit: there is only one way through the discombobulation …and that’s through it.
I spent my childhood thinking no one else was confused. Everyone else knew when it was cool to wear two Cherry Lane T-shirts at once. And when to stop. And why to do so in the first place.
Then I realised they were just better at looking like they weren’t confused. Or they varnished everything in a coat of numbness. But that just clogs up the confusion, like bad foundation on toxic skin.
I spent my 20s and most of 30s thinking I could avoid the confusion. I travelled faster, hoping I could overtake it, circumvent it. Beat it.
But as I veer toward 40, I know that the only way is through. You have to live it out. You have to sit and say, “Boy, this is confused and fucked up and…you know what, I just don’t know right now”.
I don’t know. I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know where I am in it.
And this is OK. And this makes things clear. When you’re in the funk (not outrunning it, skirting it, blinkering it), then you can rise above it. Rise. See. Be OK.
Do ya know what I mean?
