25 Comments
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clara's avatar

eliza maybe i am just so stoned but this is one of the most beautiful things i’ve read. i would read a whole book

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Laura's avatar

clara maybe i am just so stoned also but i have to agree, this is one of the most beautiful things i’ve ever read

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Glo's avatar

currently heaving at the mountain summit of starting grad school. Thank you sweet Eliza for reminding me I can just swim away if it really isn’t for me. xoxo

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Alex's avatar

omg me to glo! It kind of...fucking sucks?? lol maybe it's fine tho!

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Sarah's avatar

my god i have never heard someone describe how i felt my first few weeks of college so accurately. i thought i was going to die. i, too wanted no more journeys, i wanted to arrive! this is such a beautiful piece about learning what you worded so beautifully— there is either movement or there is death!!!

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juvenile delinquent's avatar

i relate to this piece so intimately but also not in the slightest. i failed my freshman year of high school twice and got hooked on adderall during my junior and senior year so i could graduate on time. it worked. i was able to graduate with my class, but my GPA was already so low that no 4 year university would accept me, so now i have to go to community college for 2 years and then transfer.

don’t get me wrong, community college has its upsides (smaller class sizes, dirt cheap tuition, diverse student body etc.) but i’m still living with my parents and feel like i’m stuck in a sort of arrested development. i’m not as independent as i thought i was gonna be at 21 and part of my grieving comes from letting go of the future i thought i’d have.

stumbling off of the usual roadmap to adulthood and wandering into uncharted territory feels gut wrenching and terrifying, but as didion said “however long we postpone it, we eventually lie down in that notoriously uncomfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. whether or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether or not we respect ourselves.”

maybe becoming an adult means having the courage of our mistakes. instead of lying around dwelling on “what could’ve, would’ve, should’ve been” we accept what is and try to make something of the mess.

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Ames's avatar

take my love, take it down

climb a mountain and turn around...

<3

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keeks's avatar

you put this out right when i started living alone far away from my family, and i was searching for a piece of writing like this so i can feel less alone in this experience of mourning my childhood. thank u xoxo u read my mind

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Eva Bruckner's avatar

I wanted no more journeys I wanted to arrive!!!!!

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brielle's avatar

rereading bc i need to feel something

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H Blake's avatar

Man I relate to this hard. Fucking hated being at home and couldn’t wait to leave but then my first 2 years of college were a mind bending massive depressive episode that just about killed me.

I felt truly alone for the first time, nothing to fall back on.

But that’s also freedom. It’s the first step to genuine self determination, true adulthood. I’m in my final year at the moment and for the first time in about a decade I don’t want to kill myself every day, and I sort of like who I’ve become. Things do improve, sometimes it takes fucking forever though

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helen's avatar

this so beautifully put into words how i felt basically through my last years of school all through university. i couldn't fathom any way forward except good grades > good university > good degree > good job. i still feel that way, and i've always said i'll deal with it later, when i have a degree, when i have a job, when i have a house, when i have the bandwidth to do it. so thank you for this, it reminded me that i just have to fucking chill sometimes

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Conor Daedalus's avatar

There's floating too

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claud's avatar

this is actually the most beautiful thing i’ve ever read. you are such an amazing writer (and songwriter). i connect with your words so deeply, thank you.❤️

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es.palier's avatar

i was curious by the title but the writing just described my year last year. i don't remember much of it - it was my first year working full time in my industry, and i don't remember much of the year before - my last year at university, but my god how we got here is an incredible testament.

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Robin Jay's avatar

a lot of my early 20s is learning that the grass really isn’t greener on the other side. i ended my college semester with a 4.0 GPA, but i am majorly depressed. i keep wondering when “my time” will come, but its not really gonna come. i just have to make it happen.

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Sophie's avatar

there is only drowning or swimming... i relate to this at 28

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bella's avatar

please write a book so that i may buy it and annotate in the margins and cry

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