#postyourLs

I wanted to be home this summer. Home for me is Brooklyn, NY and I go to school out in Swarthmore, PA, 30 minutes outside of Philly. I haven’t spent a summer at home since the summer after my freshman year of college. I’m about to enter my senior year. Last summer, I stayed on campus and did environmental justice work. I enjoyed the work I did last summer, but I felt so lonely on campus that I decided I couldn’t spend another summer at school. Also, given the uncertainty of what the future holds for me post-grad and a potential change in homes, I decided that I needed to spend one last summer at home before everything changes.

During the school year, I WORK mama. I had two on campus jobs while also being on the executive board for two clubs (which means I had four jobs), all while completing my school work and balancing a social life. My Google calendar was lit up--I have at least eight calendars all color coordinated for different event types. I quite literally never had a minute to myself as I would finish class and then head right over to a club meeting. I look at my Google calendar for this week and the weeks to come and it's a sea of white. 

I don’t know how to balance the two extremes of going from having a jam packed calendar to suddenly having nothing but time on my hands. When I was busy I longed for the days where I would have more than two hours free at a time so that I could play sims and pretend like I didn’t exist in this world for a minute. Now I look back to when I was in school and wish I had an annoying meeting to go to (ahhh I don’t know if I really mean that, but the sentiment stands). 

For context, I didn’t plan on not having anything to do this summer. Back in December I started reaching out to different environmental justice (EJ) groups located in Brooklyn, but no one got back to me. Understandably so, I was an annoying kid asking for an internship (not to be paid tho!) and EJ groups are busy so literally no hard feelings. I then set out to find some journalism internships, but nothing really caught my eye. I made it to the interview stage for one press opportunity at the New York City Mayor’s Office, but unfortunately didn’t get the job. Which honestly isn’t that unfortunate because Eric Adams is an asshole who closed our libraries on Sundays and I could not in good faith work for his press team. I did really want to work at the NYCMO Environmental Justice Office, and applied, but I never heard back from that which actually is unfortunate but…Then I have another complicated job situation that is still TBD, but I kinda fumbled because the prefrontal cortex was not prefrontal cortexing, but we can’t change the past.

That brings us to today. It’s Thursday, my official second week of summer break, and I am bored as hell. If I sit in this house for another minute I am actually going to lose my mind. Now, I do need to rest from the stress brought on from the school year. I look back at the semester and I wasn’t really stressed out by my classes, but  feeling my body come down I remember how stressed I was by everything else. Juggling my club commitments, my two jobs, AND applying for fellowships (one of which I won, hello!) was a lot on my mental which in turn was a lot on my physical. I was grinding day and night over winter break working on my applications! I look back and understand that I deserve rest, yes, but what I cannot do is be bored.

I also feel really bad about myself right now. Well felt, but we’re getting there. I started thinking about all the opportunities my friends have for the summer, which is so amazing and I’m so happy for them because when one wins we all win! I just felt like I wasn’t holding up my end of the stick. Also, going on Linkedin is a mind warp. Everyone is curing cancer , which again is not a bad thing! It is not a bad thing that people have internships that align perfectly with their major and aspirations. But I’m not worried that anyone will think I’m a hater because everyone who knows me knows that I am far from that, so I won’t over explain my non-malicious standpoint. In reality, it’s just hard to see people doing amazing things and feeling like I didn’t try hard enough. But typing this out, I realize that I genuinely did try to find things before the summer started. It was a mixture of not seeing anything, rejection, and a need to come home. 

At the same time, I feel bad about myself because I wanted to come home and embrace the version of myself that I’ve matured while away at school. But being in certain environments, no matter the goodness of said environment (I don’t have a bad home life at all), can still bring out a version of myself that I don’t really want to be. But I think that’s because I’m pretending. What I need to do is start being the realest version of myself while at home. Which means going to the places that bring me joy, dressing the way I want to dress, talking how I talk, being me. Sometimes when I’m at home I feel like I have to perform a version of myself which mostly means taking up less space so people don’t bother me on the train or think I’m dressed weird or even stare at me for too long. It’s like all the insecurities I don’t feel at school run up on me when I get home because this is where I learned them. You would think after years of going back and forth between here and school those insecurities wouldn’t pop up again and I wouldn’t be sitting here writing the same thing in a blog post, but they do, and I am. 

I wanted to come back home because I wanted to reclaim New York for my adult self. I wanted to introduce the version of myself that I’ve grown into thanks to being away from home to New York and see the city through these new eyes. And that’s happened for me in a lot of ways! I see things differently, I breathe easier, and I’m less anxious than my teenage self was. I think this week was just one of the harder weeks where I felt myself regressing. But, I’ve noticed it and I’m working on it. I’m hard on myself when I regress and I don’t need to be. 

I love when I make mistakes. I love it because it teaches me something new, it makes me feel better because I’m not perfect and I never want to be, and it means I can breathe because something bad happens which means something good must now happen to counteract it. 

So, the good thing is that I am going to try again. I am going to spend my summer visiting friends and in my downtime reading books, going to places I’ve wanted to go from  Tik Tok videos, reaching out to people to hangout, playing sims occasionally, attempting to cook, writing, sitting outside reading, and dressing how I want to dress (even if the walk to the train is a little scary--the first step outside in an outfit is always daunting, even when I was at school, but after I’ve hit my first destination and seen a comforting face or outfit, I feel fine). My life is not over because I don’t have a summer internship. I have the rest of my life to work and luckily I can afford not to monetarily and resume wise right now. I am probably going to do some remote work for my EJ stuff which will take up some time as well. 

Overall, it’s scary to feel like I don’t have a purpose! It’s scary to be bored. It’s easier said than done to go outside because lowkey still have some remnants of social anxiety I’m working out. But I want to just throw myself outside for at least two hours everyday (or at least four times a week) so that I don’t rot away in the house. If you have any recs to check out please let me know.

I hope you’ve enjoyed me being very candid with you about the insecurities that unfortunately plague a bad bitch. I hope you have a good summer and recommend you find a body of water to sit by if you’re stressed out. Something about being near water always calms me down (I read some science about that, but I forget it now, maybe something about the mother’s womb, idk).

Alright, kmilli out. (for now ;))