I am tired of being the victim, and not the victim all at
the same time. I’m tired of having “daddy issues” and not quite understanding
what that means. I’m tired of being a writer who isn’t famous for my work. I’m
tired of being a spoiled, bratty, white bitch. I’m tired of knowing and
understanding and not knowing or understanding anything at the same time.
I’m tired of men. I’m tired of men who say, “What’s wrong
with you? You’re not the girl I fell in love with.” I was never the girl you
fell in love with. I have been the same person since I was thirteen years old,
albeit a college degree and knowing how to pay my electricity bill, and I will
not apologize for that. I am tired of men who say, “You’re crazy,” I’m tired of
men who say, “Your body is mine, I own you.” I’m tired of knowing that nothing
I say or do can explain myself. Because I’m just wrong. We all are.
I am twenty three years old. Do you know what that means? To
a geriatric someone, that means that you have years and years of life ahead of you.
To a real, true, twenty-something, that means that all of your friends are
sending out wedding invites via some social media platform that you don’t quite
understand, and you are powerless to stop it. It means drinking three beers and
watching girls you went to pre-school with say, “I do.” It means being a
failure, and I will not apologize for it.
I am tired of women. I’m tired of my mother saying that I
don’t look good in glasses, or that I’m too fat. I’m tired of girls who
undermine you at work, throw you under the bus during a group project, and make
you feel dumb. I am tired of the Gatsby girls. You know the ones. The ones who
are beautiful, little fools and know it. You know what the difference is? They
convince people that they are not crazy, and then when the moment is right, they prove that they are. The truth is, that all women are crazy. All men are
crazy. We’re all going crazy.
Because this thing, this life that we experience, is hard.
And I’m not talking about AP Government during senior year of high school hard.
I’m talking real, true-blue difficult. The kind of rough, rough, roughness that
makes you listen to Poke by Frightened Rabbit on repeat four times in the
shower and your roommate pretends not to notice.
Poke out my iris / Why can’t I cry about this? / Maybe there is something that you
know that I don’t.
There is something that you know that I don’t. There must
be, or I wouldn’t feel this way. Tell me how you keep a boyfriend, a fiancé, a
husband for five years without screaming “I HATE YOUR GUTS” on the streets of
Manhattan, even once. Tell me how you get ahead in your career with your brown
sugar and peaches. Tell me how you got through college without a panic attack.
Tell me how you survived.
Because the truth is, I’m not sure that any of us survived,
past tense. I think we’re all still surviving. We’re surviving parents from a
generation where you were “special” if you went to college, when merely
attending classes at a university earned you enough merit to get a job that
would support your family. We’re surviving centuries of misogyny and misandry,
decades of hating one another for our sexual orientations and genders and the
colors of our skins and the sizes of our thigh gaps. We’re surviving laziness.
We’re surviving the comment sections on blogs and Seamless coupons and 24 hours
of Netflix a day. We’re surviving unemployment and underemployment and we’re
all spoiled brats because of it. None of us are checking our privilege
properly. None of us are addicted to the right things. None of us are the
voices of our generation, because really, who has a true voice today? You?
Because you write on the Internet and produce television shows and think that
you’re special? No. Not you. And not me. And I won’t apologize for it.
I’m tired of falling in love. I’m tired of love not being
enough. I’m tired of girls talking behind my back because I’m a nerd. I’m tired
of not being able to afford my rent. I’m tired of pizza making me fat. I’m
tired of fighting and fighting and reading hundreds of articles that say the
same thing, and I’m tired of nothing making a difference. I’m tired of Social
Distortion being right.
Well, it’s been 10 years and a thousand tears / And look at
the mess I’m in / A broken nose and a broken heart / An empty bottle of gin.
I’m tired of arguing with my boyfriend when we both know we
love each other. I’m tired of going to yoga classes when I know they don’t calm
me down. I’m tired of having a job when I just want to drink whiskey and be a
writer. I’m tired of having a life when I just want to drink whiskey and be a
bad person. I’m tired of software upgrades and Justin Beiber and having all the
people that I love live too far away. I’m tired of missing my parents and my
dogs. I’m tired of taking a Xanax at every family holiday, I’m tired of 80’s
movies that promised us we would all be okay by now.
But if you’re tired like me, keep fighting. And please,
don’t apologize for that. I’ve heard it gets better. Maybe.
