One could say I owe you a apology for writing only sad. heavier themes for these past weeks, but I’m trying to break the ‘Sorry’ trap — the one where you never stop being sorry — so I’ll thank you instead for tagging along, sticking to the plot. This one will be a happy one, I promise.
In delicate’s birthday letter, I wrote that “I mourn the death of the person I thought I was and try, try, try to make peace with the person I might really be.”. This was something I realised only recently, that I’m not the chatty, open, non-judgemental, all-love girl I thought. I’m more desperate, worried, scared. If you ever watched Captain America (I did back in the day), there’s that scene where he wakes up to present day New York after his 90 years comma. It’s jarring and shocking and it left him probably pretty fucked up.
That’s something I used to be but I’m not anymore, a fan of superhero movies. I had a Marvel phase, I still have a funko pop of cap’merica my brother gifted me. He’s not a part of my beloved fandoms or characters anymore, I don’t care for Marvel much, but I did, once. Same with the BB-8 plushie on my bed, a really, really brief Star Wars phase I had when the series got a new movie in 2015. I haven’t even watched the originals. What does all of this make me? What does it tell about the person I am today? I don’t know, but there was a meaning to it. Once. Yes, I stood against Iron Man, if that means anything to anyone. It’s all dead waters, the tastes of someone I’d get along with but I don’t think I’d befriend, not as closely as the Me I am today that likes an array of other things. I don’t look forward to their releases anymore, definitely not with the same intensively at least. Times have changed, and the world changes with them, or perhaps it’s the other way around.
But that isn’t the only thing that has been noticed, or that has changed. I’m a lot more quiet, and specifically, anxiously quiet. In the past I was more the blabbermouth type of nervous. And then I got a job and realised that this charged electricity does messes with you, your confidence, your performance. They do have an impact on your personality, even when you wish otherwise. I text a supervisor and start a sentence with ‘Sorry to bother’, and you might think that’s formal, it’s etiquette, but no, it’s honest. I’ll catch myself checking something thrice and the second after I send it, I’m questioning again if it was alright or not., if I’ve made a mistake. There’s a necessity, a habit in the way I write to let you understand it’s just, simply, only, in my opinion, probably. Minimizing any chance of ever showing security, if there is doubt you can’t have fingers pointed at you, right? Minimizing my words, opinions, stances so it hurts you less when I fail somehow. So you’ll love me more, as if there’s any correlation that if you're less of a bother you’ll be more loved.
Extreme insecurity isn’t as cute as the internet may play it. It makes you think borderline crazy stuff, like that I just told you, that you’ll be more loved if you’re less annoying. It’s not a cute trait, not when you’re being evaluated, when you wish you could make others understand it isn’t just that you’re to learn, you also wish to apply what you’re taught successfully. Will it be embarrassing if I say my days are better when I leave with the sensation of a labour of effort and love? I’ve made my peace with the fact I’m slower, the type of work I do depends a lot on what you receive for the day anyway, which can come with trickier situations, and I’m told it’s preferred a job well done than a speedy one. But I don’t wish to be friends with this side of me that only trusts doubt. No, I don’t want to be this way forever. But how do I get out of the labyrinth?
I see my anxiety as mostly a distrust with the world. In my head we made an arrangement that each time I’d suffer, there had to be 10 other things that would outweigh that 1 suffering. World, unfortunately, had to break the rule by giving me more than what I bargained for on the delivery service we call life. The stuff that hurts is a lot more apparent, easier to find, comes far more often. What I value hides underneath the shade, likes a little chase, to have me play a guessing game. Which makes me happy, quick!: loving or being loved? It’s all tricky, figuring out what way the ship of life will sail, the waters are calm one second and tumultuous in the other, and the boat is missing the wheel, and I don’t know how to swim!
I hold a lot of tension, nerves, anxiety, whatever it might be. Naturally, as if I’m a charging cable, there’s a lot of energy, which hurts my tummy; I don’t hold my bag, I grip it. I don’t sit, I tighten my legs, my butt, my shoulders, most muscles and bones your doctor might’ve told you not to strain. And it hurts eventually, the body always remembers. I’m used to weekly knee pains, really painful ones. I don’t even know why I’m this way, but now that I catch it more often I can make a conscious effort to slow down, open my hands a bit, unclench my body, and stop. Almost as if I live life in a constant state of danger, and consecutively, fear. It’s what you get when you don’t trust the world. It will also not trust you back.
On my notes app, I found a transcript of Taylor Swift’s speech for NYU’s Class of ‘22. That’s someone I’ve liked since I was 11, 12, 13, and have yet to let go — that’s a lie, I had a phase where I stopped listening to her stuff (Reputation era, ironic given the name of track nº5 in the album). She is not without faults, none of us are, and I know the internet tends to work on a pendulum whenever she’s mentioned, seems as if you either love or hate her. I’ve sometimes wondered if you ever feel annoyed when I bring her up, the aunt asking ‘so what about boyfriends?’ at the dinner table, and it takes more than both courage and a couple of hard minutes until I remember this is supposed to be not just our space, but mine. I always thought of myself as understanding, but when true opposition calls for alliance, I take a step back, get scared. I don’t want to displease, have a different stance, make you think less of me. Still, there’s no way I can control anyone besides myself, and maybe a pet, but even that takes cooperation.
If I can’t be myself in front of you in this shared, sacred place, someone that does like corny pop songs and flowery lyrics and memorable bridges, what does it matter that I spend hours writing my heart out to you? Look at me, speaking as if liking her is some public crime, which isn’t, but I’m nor blind nor deaf, and even if I’m not her, perhaps it’s overreaching of me to say that the critiques she gets also get to me, some part of me at least, some of the bricks that get thrown. To so many she’s just another self absorbed, privileged white women, and I have no power or authority to make you think otherwise. Why would I? Why would anyone? Do I even want to? What is the world if not a palette of variant shades? What fun would it be if we were all the same, thought all the same? There is comfort in solidarity and there is life in divergency. I feel like I’m straying from the topic, but the point I wanted to make with all this is that even if I preach authenticity, I forget it can come with apprehension and judgement and the freedom to disagree. It’s not about Taylor Swift, it could be about anything or anyone else. I take disagreement personally when I shouldn’t, when I don’t have to, when disagreement is natural, really, and it doesn’t have to immedietly tell something about who you are as a whole person, about your full, immense identity. It’s not always about you, it’s not about me. There’s a quote that goes, “confidence isn’t they will like me, it’s I’ll be okay if they don’t”, and if that’s the case, I have a long way to go until I can say I am confident.
I’ll strip down and admit, I wonder if the fact I like her makes you like me less? It’s a winding path of self-criticism where I tear my own soul down with the hope that… I don’t know. I actually don’t know. It’s so crazy, how we’re all different, and I’m 22 and still look at the unknown like a big playground of grown ups where we’re all playing different games and everyone hates me. I easily break under societal pressure and criticism, it’s a trait that come with insecurity and that I try not to let get the best of me…. awareness is a first step.
Either way, the message stands, if I can’t be sincere, the meaning is lost. I think a lot about this concept, sincerity in existence, that being your true self is this deep relief and so endlessly unpleasant, at least until you’re used to it. Used to being your true, ever changing self. I contradict myself easily if it means someone might, will be dissatisfied with me, which isn’t the type of change I mention here, and it’s one I try to battle daily, and I wish you won’t fall victim of. But to love someone is to love through, and to have enough mind, enough patience or compassion or empathy or even just good old effort, curiosity to deal with the parts you don’t get. There will always be some, so it might be wiser not to try to convince yourself otherwise, take my word for it. If you don’t, it’ll be like making a painting of someone you love and falling for the art instead of the muse. I don’t understand why my brother shows me Brazilian Funk songs, and I won’t let it make my love for him dimmer.
I digress, right, Taylor’s speech. She had a couple of… really good takes I’d like to leave you with and write around, the rest I’ll mention as afterthoughts. Here’s a thick bit.
And so this may be hard for you to hear: In your life, you will inevitably misspeak, trust the wrong people, under-react, overreact, hurt the people who didn’t deserve it, overthink, not think at all, self sabotage, create a reality where only your experience exists, ruin perfectly good moments for yourself and others, deny any wrongdoing, not take the steps to make it right, feel very guilty, let the guilt eat at you, hit rock bottom, finally address the pain you caused, try to do better next time, rinse, repeat. And I’m not gonna lie, these mistakes will cause you to lose things. I’m trying to tell you that losing things doesn’t just mean losing.
A lot of the time, when we lose things, we gain things too.
Now you leave the structure and framework of school and chart your own path. Every choice you make leads to the next choice which leads to the next, and I know it’s hard to know sometimes which path to take. There will be times in life when you need to stand up for yourself. Times when the right thing is to back down and apologize. Times when the right thing is to fight, times when the right thing is to turn and run. Times to hold on with all you have and times to let go with grace. Sometimes the right thing to do is to throw out the old schools of thought in the name of progress and reform. Sometimes the right thing to do is to listen to the wisdom of those who have come before us. How will you know what the right choice is in these crucial moments? You won’t.
Earlier in the speech she mentioned how ‘Part of growing up and moving into new chapters of your life is about catch and release’, and the importance of how we are the ones that get to pick what our lives have time and room for. Catch and release. The pop music production these days has been using a phenomena, I heard in a HTHAZE video (great stuff to put on the background, like a podcast), where songs start in mostly silent, minimal instrumentals, until the first or second chorus or a bridge comes along, and the sound just explodes, crashes into you. Olivia Rodrigo does that a lot in my favourite songs of hers. It makes the experience much more alive.
I feel intensely. And it’s so corny, dismissive, to see people constantly saying it’s more of a blessing than a curse, but on certain days it becomes true. And the other day I also noticed, I feel intensely but I tend to only record when I’m somber and at my lowest, weakest points. I have no experience writing when I’m happy and, in a way, recording my happiness as much as I do with my sadness. Memory is short. Hope comes before the storm, relief washes only after the destruction is all around you. I write mostly from a place of either pain or relief, but rarely ever of hope, the kind that just exists for the sake of existing, hope with no reason. Hope funded on trust.
Depression is exhausting. Have you ever thought of that? It’s like a donut of suffering. You’ll feel alive when you bite into it too, but a good amount of things in life will both kill you and give you life. Social media is definitely one of those for me, I thrive among the company of people and art and this vibrant, colourful world, but I also die a little in it. It is a place where I’m reminded of what I’m missing out, and that makes me question if I’m really content or not, if it’s even worth to try and feel, chase, be happy if it can only be that way for a short while. Questioning doesn’t have to be an alarming happenstance, it means you’re growing up, changing — but too much of it and you might be asking the happiness you found or created to close the door on its way out. When I’m outside of the screen, I make do with what I have, but there’s a peace I lose, exchange, for the love I might receive from opening a silly app on my phone and talk to souls half a continent away. I trade the possibility of building confidence for connection. It’s not an equal, fair trade. I still ponder if one day I might leave it all, disappear and leave no trace. Love will always find a way back to me, that’s one of the deals I trust to be true, it makes life less frightening. Even when you abandon it.
“We write to taste life twice.”
— Anais Nin
I think the only way I know how to catch and release things is through writing. I catch the feeling and release the waste, the dirt. I’m a machine of unhelpful thoughts that produces helpful-at-times musings. Yet I have no experience with writing to keep the memory of joy alive for longer, so it too can be remembered. It’s awkward to catch what’s light, what’s bright. I’m an expert at catching my flaws and where I’m lacking, where it’s darker, I’ve gotten so attached to that broken picture I forgot to ever release it.
Let me try it here in front of an audience. Some things feel less scary with company, like going to the dentist. Which reminds me I should visit mine soon.
I want to be house of love. Welcoming but not as an invitation to be stepped upon and ruined like a doormat. I want to trust my own gut more, because I have to give her credit, she is trying to protect me, even if she’s crazy. Change is a promise, and love comes back to you in the shapes you’d least expect at times. A book, a message on a Saturday morning, a song you ignored at first. I won’t know what’s right every time, but I have enough faith in myself to know the consequences of getting it wrong won’t kill me. Nor will the loneliness I run away from and find in a dead alley end, or the ever present nerves I look back at without needing a mirror, they’re within. I caught a leaf in the shape of a heart on the subway, a tree with three different shades of leaves, chills while listening to music, and released the need to pay attention to anything else besides the beauty of existing. I catch my bravery in the dawn of action, waiting for me to take a step, then two, and then a big leap. What I like today I might hate tomorrow, which is frightening, but the space left by something you love can be the place of belonging for whatever has yet to be found. Isn’t there some joy in the unknown too then? Being pleasant is for things and experiences, not for people, I’m not a performance to be enjoyed, I’m a person, but my depression and insecurity often makes me forget that. It won’t be easy, learning how to be who I am, keeping my ground in the face of reproval without a few tears, and perhaps a good place to start is the one where I remember that all my mistakes, all that I’ve loved and stopped loving, led me to be alive today, led me here. I am grateful to be alive. Perhaps it’s not much, but you have to start somewhere, don’t you?
Thank you for reading delicate this week. I hope this time it left you recharged and with a smile. I trust you.
DELICACIES OF THE WEEK
As mentioned, here are a couple of other remarkable quotes on Swift’s speech. You may read the full transcript here.
“Not a single one of us here today has done it alone. We are each a patchwork quilt of those who have loved us, those who have believed in our futures, those who showed us empathy and kindness or told us the truth even when it wasn’t easy to hear.”
“Never be ashamed of trying. Effortlessness is a myth.”
“The times I was told no or wasn’t included, wasn’t chosen, didn’t win, didn’t make the cut…looking back, it really feels like those moments were as important, if not more crucial, than the moments I was told ‘yes.’ (…) Being publicly humiliated over and over again at a young age was excruciatingly painful but it forced me to devalue the ridiculous notion of minute by minute, ever fluctuating social relevance and likability.”
“Life can be heavy, especially if you try to carry it all at once. Part of growing up and moving into new chapters of your life is about catch and release. What I mean by that is, knowing what things to keep, and what things to release. You can’t carry all things, all grudges, all updates on your ex, all enviable promotions your school bully got at the hedge fund his uncle started. Decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go. Oftentimes the good things in your life are lighter anyway, so there’s more room for them. One toxic relationship can outweigh so many wonderful, simple joys. You get to pick what your life has time and room for. Be discerning.”
“Getting back up, dusting yourself off and seeing who still wants to hang out with you afterward and laugh about it? That’s a gift.”
“As long as we are fortunate enough to be breathing, we will breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out. And I’m a doctor now, so I know how breathing works.”
This thread where Richard Siken answers a question.
This post appeared earlier last week and I think it’s worth sharing. From river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
SONGS OF THE WEEK: うたのけはい by ichiko aoba, can't catch me now by olivia rodrigo and ai amor by anavitória
delicate’s spotify playlist! & delicate’s tumblr
anything you’d like to leave anonymously can be sent here xxx
i loved this.... a lot of your writing deeply resonates with me but!!! this one in particular!!! i have never felt more seen in my life! on top of that you are so real for the "lost interest in taylor after reputation released" i've never read something more real in my life. thank you for this, your writing is gorgeous! 🙏