An Open Letter

Hey. I feel like I start almost every conversation like that, or maybe a heyo to different people. I didn’t think this would be how I start writing this. I stayed up watching a few youtube videos, not too late since I have to teach a section tomorrow morning but enough that it’s past when I would ideally have slept by. I don’t know what version of me I’m writing this to, more likely than not to no one in particular. I never really go back and read these things again so so much for that anyway. There’s so much that’s happened in my life that I could have never expected. Hash turns 5 soon. I have a girlfriend right now. I’m finishing my master’s degree. Hell, I even just went to Japan with a group of my online friends. That’s a life for sure. I bought some books in Japan, and I got two from the prince of tennis. Remember reading those books on your tablet, and then getting so hyped to play tennis again? I’ve always thought I was a pretty obsessive person, and I would burn hard for something until that gave out and something else came up. I’ve always loved that about me, and what a strange chemical makeup of me that is. I wish I could go back in time and hug childhood myself. I wish I could go back again and again and hug myself enough times until I didn’t think it was foreign. I thought about how if someone was cheated on early on in their life and in a foundational experience, how they would permanently be afraid of that in the future and how that would almost guaranteed always be a fear of theirs. I think that’s how I am with my childhood. It’s not like I can change it, and I know that I can do my best to heal from the wounds from it but at the same time it’s not like at some point in the near future I’m going to stop feeling this way about it, or have a different memory of it I think. But also I think I’m very wrong with that. Or just most things overall in life. I had this weird fear after watching that video essay, about how I didn’t find romance in the world nearly as much as I did after finishing outer wilds over this summer. I don’t look at the sky or feel the sun on my skin or see the rain and feel such a sense of wonder and gratefulness for being alive in this world. I don’t want to say this in a depressing way, but just as an observation. I feel caught up in this stream of motions of day to day life, handling and navigating stress and other problems that I haven’t had really a chance to struggle with the human condition in it’s naked glory. I find myself not sad, but I feel like crying. I uninstalled tiktok a while ago on a whim, and with that went my access to the folder of videos and slideshows I saved to help me cry. Today I got caught off guard from just seeing an old google ad consisting of just searches that made me almost tear up. I’m happy I wasn’t alone in that experience as the comments were also mentioning about how they were surprised they were almost tearing up also. I want to get caught up in some narrative other than my current one for long enough to instill this wonder back into me. I feel like I teeter between these feelings of being someone that should not be compared to, while also being not good enough to compete with others. I feel shame at my resume and anxious of showing it to others since I don’t want them to compare themselves to me. I feel like I’m someone who is perpetually faced with some question to solve, and when life is going well I turn to big picture existential questions. I’ve right now been pretty far away from that end of the spectrum, caught up in the stresses of immediate survival in the case of interviews for jobs. I wonder how it will turn out. I believe it will be fine, it’s just a question of getting there. I don’t feel like I have any longing, but rather just a building tiredness that looms over me and threatens to consume me. It’s like a shadowy cloud of vapor trying to crush me that I may be able to slowly inhale part by part to chunk it away from being such a threat to me. I need a bit of a reset I think, I’ve been too ambitious and I’m burning out.