I can feel it: the melancholy, the lingering anxiety, constant exhaustion, fluctuating from frustration to indifference. I know that I’m on the cusp of a change when everything goes to shit in the best way possible. It’s frustrating and numbing and exactly where I need to be.
I work in a Black hole. My mind feels stretched apart. I monologue in the mirror about giving two-week notice. At times I’m treated like a failure. I often feel like one. There are times where I was a grateful that I passed on having the complete art school experience. By being forced to interact with non-creatives at my university I was given options other than to live, sleep and breath design and color theory. That did wonders for my mental health, but my skills suffered as a result. One professor went on sabbatical, and then another and then the next; soon, we were being taught by first years or people that stopped caring altogether. For years I was constantly playing catch-up.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes at work. I would miss a punctuation here, misspell a term there; I’m prone to typos, and I beat myself up about it because I see that client leads are reluctant to work with me. It doesn’t matter that I branded a conference for the United Nations. It doesn’t matter that I made a live font from scratch in less than four weeks. I didn’t catch a copy change and am therefore utterly incompetent. But I am not a copywriter. I am not an editor. In a fast-paced industry, where I handle the design assignments of several clients per day, I don’t have the luxury to proof read all copy before it goes on an ad or white-paper, nor is it my job to do so. I do my best, but this isn’t working.
I’ve learned more about film, philosophy and skin care over the last two and three-fourth years than I have about design. It’s gotten to the point where I’m unsure on whether becoming an Art Director is still my endgame. Is it that I no longer enjoy working here or that I no longer enjoy working in design? How does this serve my passion? What use I am to it or is it to me if all I am is nothing more than ads and updates? I haven’t drawn for fun in months. I haven’t painted in years. A time is coming where I will not pour energy into matter that only seeks to expand aimlessly as both it and I collapse. Not everything I produce will be profound or influential or astoundingly beautiful; A Bonn COP23 project comes once in a lifetime. But experiencing joy in watching an idea take form and blossom into work I can proud of should not be.
One of my best friends hasn’t spoken to me in three months. After ten years of friendship, we just stopped talking. There was no earth-shattering argument. There wasn’t a fallout. I can’t even call it being ghosted because they still like a large number of my posts on social media. Calls stopped; messages became one-sided. I started to think back on our conversations and think about what I may have said wrong. I started to theorize why they didn’t want to hangout anymore. Everyone has experienced going online to see they there weren’t invited to a party, or a birthday, but it would be safe to say that most haven’t then thereafter be invited to a party on their birthday.
I was invited to an event hosted by a friend—who hasn’t spoken to me in months—to celebrate someone else, and this event would be held on my birthday. Around the same time, I had come to the realization that a group of friends from my college were actively avoiding contact with me. I didn’t know what to think. My insecurities had never been more validated.
“No one wants to be around you.”
“They’re talking shit about you.”
“When you try to reach out they screenshot your texts and laugh at you.”
I was gifted a beautiful photo-collage years ago that featured a dozen people whom I shared some of the highest points of my life with. I can’t be sure if could call on any of those people today if I needed help. For most, I know I can’t.
When I wrote “Adapting to Adult Friendship” over a year ago I hadn’t accounted for this. You never think that people would all disappear at once, and so candidly. These growing pains ache. And what to do now remains open. I’ve been ignored, and that’s okay. The time is coming where I no longer fight for relationships that fill me with the same insecurity and stagnation they experience. And a well-needed conversation with a good friend was able to change my perspective on how I saw myself and these relationships:
“To tell you the truth, I think a lot of people are boring now. It’s all routine. We’re all growing into our own ways, too stubborn to change course to accommodate others. It’s like if we place enough distance between ourselves and other people, those people will eventually take the hint and give up. Sometimes it’s on purpose; other times, it’s just what happens … It’s not because you’re not a good person or a good friend. It’s because you don’t fit. We shouldn’t try to fit into something we’ve outgrown. I’ve been where you’re trying to be and, believe me, you’re not missing out on much.”
Life will get better by chance, but it will also get better with change: a change in attitude, a change in perspective, a change in scenery—all of which I have experienced in the last week or two. I originally wrote this piece at the end of November. The day it was set to be published, part of my work life and social life crumbled within an instant. So, I started over. This was not the first time a friendship has faded. I’m not the first person to ever hate their job. But this is the first time in a long time that I had to juggle both weights so haphazardly. What I’m learning is that holding onto people or places or ideas seeped in comfort and familiarity may be the reason I miss out on something better. I’m going through changes and—though melancholic and anxious and exhausted, flustered and indifferent—I welcome it.
SYDSUGOI SPEAKS 