theladymorning

[theladymorning]

Existential despair is so common in a person's twenties, I think, because up until that point, we've had a pretty clear road map for what's expected of us and we haven't had much reason to question that map. There are still a few milestones outlined for us (start a career, get married, make babies) but more and more young people are entering the post-school world and realizing:

A) that career thing just isn't happening like they said it would

B) I'm not ready to get married/I don't want to get married/marriage isn't the sort of life-altering event that it used to be

C) I'm not ready to make babies/I don't want a baby/I can't afford to raise children right now (see point A)

And in the absence of these milestones to shoot for (which one could argue weren't the promise of fulfillment they claimed to be in the first place), what we're left with is this aimless abyss of "the rest of our lives" sprawling out ahead of us with no indication of how it will go or what we should be doing to shape it. Young people start their first jobs, find they hate them, and think to themselves, "Is this it? Am I just supposed to do this job until I'm too old to do it or die first?"

Which is, yeah, really fucking depressing!! So here's my best attempt at an alternate roadmap for young people that don't vibe with the old model. Please feel free to add in your own suggestions!

Learn how you work and what you want out of a job. Unless you've been in a job-specific training program that gives you hands-on experience, your first jobs should be experiments. Learn how a full-time job feels for you, what elements are more or less difficult. Different workplaces have different cultures and expectations - what do you need out of a job environment? Do you need to find fulfillment in your job or is it enough for it to pay the bills and leave you time to find outside fulfillment? Do you want to climb a corporate ladder or are you content to hunker down as long as your bills get paid? This period of experimentation is exhausting and may feel like it's consuming your whole life.

Learn how to make time for things outside of work. Adapting to a full-time work environment often leaves you feeling so drained that you can't do anything but go home and collapse on the couch every day. That's fine - for a little while. But it can also become a habit. You need to learn how to do things after work or you'll go crazy. Go to a trivia night. Start an exercise schedule. Take a class in your community. Find volunteer work. Join a band. You will find that putting more things into your day makes you feel like you have more time, not less.

Find a community. Making friends as an adult can feel impossible. Where do you find these mysterious friends everyone seems to have?? This goes along with #2, though. As you start regularly attending the same activities, you will find that repeat interactions with the same people turn into friendships or at least friendly acquaintances. Say yes to invitations. Get involved in your local community. Strive to be connected enough to bump into people at the grocery store.

Unlearn bad lessons. We all internalize some messed up things when we're growing up. As you start off your adult life, that's the time to actively work at unpacking the things you've brought with you from childhood and deciding which things are helping you and which things are harming you. This might mean therapy or joining a spiritual group or reading new things or just making special time to be in your own head.

Learn the lessons you missed. In this, I mostly mean practical things. "Adulting." Areas of your day-to-day practical life that are causing you extreme stress are probably related to a knowledge or experience gap. Do you hate cooking and cleaning or were you not taught how to do it properly? Are you afraid of making medical appointments or is it just something new you're not used to? Does money make you queasy or do you need to learn how to make a budget?

Find something fulfilling. This can be your job. It can be volunteer work. It can be faith. It can be a hobby. It can be creating things. It can be challenging yourself physically. It can be activism. It can be going for walks in nature. Everyone finds fulfillment in different places. If you're not finding it where you are, look somewhere else.

[theladymorning]

The real tabletop RPG party dynamic:

Fucker who makes you wonder exactly what's wrong with them

Fucker who you know exactly what's wrong with them

Fucker who seems pretty on the level, then halfway through the campaign you find out what's wrong with them

Fucker whose deal is actually kind of tame, but their inability to be normal about it is what's wrong with them

Fucker whose unshakable conviction that there's nothing wrong with them is what's wrong with them

Fucker who's just happy to be included, and that's what's wrong with them

[theladymorning]

Anastasia Trusova, “And the sunset came” Acrylic on canvas / 60 x 80 cm / 2022

[theladymorning]

[theladymorning]

If you’ve never been all that disobedient before, you can and should start really, really small. For example, you can wear the slightly revealing or gloriously trashy-looking garment that makes your mom roll her eyes and sigh despondently every time she sees you put it on. You will feel judged and disapproved of when you put it on, but that is fine. Your goal is to sit with the uncomfortable feelings and continue with your desired behavior anyway.  Saunter down the steps in that highlighter-yellow Garfield crop top with your chest hair flowing over the neckline, and harness as much courage as you can muster. It’s okay if you feel like a beacon of sin. Just keep it moving. Your emotions are not the target here. Your behavior is. You can feel however you are feeling in the moment so long as you keep acting like you’re free.  Do you have a favorite TV show that a partner or roommate vocally hates? Try watching that show around them without apologizing or defensively joining them in mocking the program. At first, you probably won’t be able to enjoy the show while in their presence. You’ll feel self-conscious about everything they find annoying or cringe-inducing about the show, and so focused on their reactions that you can’t relax. That’s okay. Allow those feelings of embarrassment and guilt to exist and pass through you without giving up. In time, you will be able to ignore these reactions more, and enjoy the activity.  You want to see the needle of discomfort moving down just a little, like Link’s body temperature meter in Tears of the Kingdom when he puts on a breathable outfit in a hot climate. You’re not gonna go from roiling hot to frosty cold in an instant. But after a certain point, you won’t be actively in pain anymore. Things are just gonna slowly suck less, bit by bit, until they are finally okay. That’s true of most major life adjustments, I find.  Probably the best way to develop self-advocacy skills while growing in your distress tolerance is simply by telling other people no. Do this without explanation or hedging. Nitpicky aunt wants to hear all about your dating life? “No, I don’t want to talk about that.” Unreliable ex-friend wants you to do them the tiny favor of moving their entire home gymnasium into a new third story walk-up? “No, I’m not available.” Manipulative shift supervisor wants to cajole you into sticking around for another three hours to close? “No.”  As many advice columnists smarter than me have already intoned, “no” is a complete sentence. “No” requires no explanation. “No” is not subject to debate. “No” can be repeated over and over like a broken record if a disrespectful person acts like they can’t hear it. And you can walk away at any time to make your “no” physical and impossible to argue with, when someone has proven they don’t respect your boundaries. 

you can read or listen to the full piece for free here

[theladymorning]

the two genders are “i no longer wish to be perceived” and “i have to be the most fuckable person at the grocery store”

#I feel like this is actually the 3rd axis of gender #How much gender #Level of gender you want to share #What are the other axes? Beats me

[theladymorning]

the fact that I won't live long enough to travel to every beautiful location on earth.

the fact that I won't live long enough to meet every kind soul and converse in their native language

the fact that I won't live long enough to experience every delicious home recipe

the fact that I won't live long enough to witness every amazing creature roaming the planet

the fact that I won't live long enough to visit every piece of art, hear every song

the fact that I lived and was able to experience any of it at all

#Unironically me #And unironically a big part of my concept of heaven #As a place where all souls and energy and experience mix and mingle and we truly can experience all that beauty #And then we call that God #In the same way we call our body #made up of all its millions of cells #Human #Or us #Anyway that's probably deeper than this called for but sometimes you just get struck by the beauty of the world

[theladymorning]

Greg Beecham (American,b.1954)

A Quick Turn Around, 2021

oil on linen

[theladymorning]

date a selkie, but don’t hide her cloak. let her go home and visit her family now and then, knowing that she’ll come back and hang her seal cloak in the closet like she always does. trust is important.

[theladymorning]

Tbh? I don't like Paul. I don't want Paul. I understand that Paul serves an important narrative function and that Paul is the best possible ending for Camilla and Palamedes given their situation, personalities, and relationship. However what I really want is for Camilla and Palamedes to attend the ATN wedding as two individual humans and for Pal to be a lightweight who loses his tie in the garden fountain after three drinks and for Camilla to do exactly one shot with the group, keep Gideon from ripping the sleeves off her dress shirt, and absolutely kill it at lawn games during cocktail hour. Since this scenario is a wild tonal mismatch for the series and also Palamedes was already dead, this was unlikely to ever happen. However Paul is the final nail in the coffin for the theoretical existence of this scene and I can't help but resent them for that

[theladymorning]

please enjoy this eastern grass owl. owls are so important to me please observe him

[theladymorning]

[theladymorning]

4/14　新潟県阿賀野市　「flying（飛翔）」 おびただしい数の羽虫と一羽のダイサギ　

[theladymorning]

inner light.

find me on instagram!

[theladymorning]

sometimes I wish I had ed sheeran’s phone number just so I could call him up and say SIMILES ARE GENERALLY ONLY WORTHWHILE IF THEY ADD SOMETHING TO AN IDEA. RECOGNISING THAT 2 THINGS CAN HAVE A COMMONALITY IN A VERY VAGUE WAY DOES NOT MEAN IT’S USEFUL TO REFERENCE IT. SEE: FACES CRUMBLING LIKE PASTRIES. IS SHE A BAKER? DOES SHE ENJOY A GOOD CROISSANT? IS THIS REFERENCED ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE PIECE? IF YOU ANSWER ‘NO’ TO ONE OR ALL OF THE ABOVE, DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200 OR A BRIT AWARD.

[theladymorning]

[theladymorning]

I’m chronically offline but Tumblr doesn’t count = I’m California sober.