is this flop forever?
on outgrowing my life with a serious fear of what's next
I’m in a flop era right now.
I’m not thrilled to admit it, but it’s the truth! And I guess the first step to escaping is… admitting it? Idk, my friends would probably disagree because I’ve talked about it nonstop since it began and I fear I’m no closer to its end than I was in the beginning.
Of course that’s always what people say when they’re in the flop era, and then they go back to slaying and it’s like, “Oh, silly flop me, you were so dramatic! Look how much better things will get!” until I’m back in another inevitable flop era and those better things are no longer as shiny as they had been when I was making fun of myself.
Anyway sorry that was a lot of my inner monologue, let’s try again!
I’m in a flop era right now. And I am getting really, really burnt out from consuming content or hearing reassurance that “things will get better” when, no matter how hard I try to change things or gaslight myself, things don’t.
Phoebe Bridgers is back. Well, sort of. She just wrapped up a pop-up tour to a bunch of tiny cities where UFO sightings have been recorded (just another diva who loves a theme <3), and now she’s going on a national tour with no phones (swoon) and there’s no album announcement but she’s sort of just doing whatever she wants and I’m eating it all up.
You see, the last time I saw Phoebe Bridgers on tour, I was deeply unwell. I’m pretty sure we’ve talked about this here, but it was at the end of my study abroad and I was in a depressive episode and blah blah blah, you get the picture. So it feels only fitting as my favorite (deeply sad) artist is coming back to Earth, I’m feeling an itch to be a version of myself I’m not yet.
This flop era is a culmination of a lot of mixed feelings. It all began – candidly – with wondering what my career should look like. Have you ever been somewhere where you’ve known for a while you shouldn’t be anymore, but you for some reason didn’t leave when you knew you should’ve, and now everyone else knows you shouldn’t be there either? That’s how I’d sum up my professional life right now. It is evident in any conversation, any 11 AM spiral, any creative endeavor I’ve neglected (cough, cough) that I have outgrown the life I’m in.
My life when it comes to friends and hobbies and such still feels like it fits me. But the weight of where I spend most of my time during the week feeling two sizes too small for me and four trend seasons behind who I am right now is really starting to weigh me down.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m trying. I’m trying to figure out why things feel dissonant, what I should do next, but it just feels like this impossible weight on my chest (yes, even with the SSRIs) that who I should be is waiting for me right there, but I just cannot seem to reach her.
When I was little, I had a baby blanket that had Winnie the Pooh characters on it that a neighbor had quilted for me. I loved that blanket, so much so that I’d chew on it. And chew on it and chew on it, until it was an indistinguishable pile of threads and my mom told me we had to throw it away. Then she gave me her baby blanket, and to absolutely no one’s surprise, I did the exact same fucking thing.
I bring this blanket up for two reasons:
Because of my Winnie the Pooh blanket, I’d consume a lot of Winnie the Pooh content, specifically the song called “Little Black Rain Cloud.” The chorus I still find gets caught in my head, and it goes like this:
I'm just a little black rain cloud
Hovering under the honey tree
I'm only a little black rain cloud
Pay no attention to little meIt’s how I feel basically all the time these days when I’m at work or talking about my crisis outside of it to anyone. Like I am a little black rain cloud trapped in a honey tree’s body, and my honey tree is really what I do feel like most of the time until the looming idea of my uncertain future or goals soaks my honey tree and makes her droop. And once my little black rain cloud is showing, I don’t want anyone to look at me or perceive me or know about it, because I want to clear the forecast myself. Sigh.
Everyone else got to have a baby blanket they loved so dearly and took everywhere with them and didn’t chew to shreds, so why couldn’t I do the normal kid thing? Why couldn’t I just stop literally chewing up and spitting out this thing that brought me immense comfort and happiness? And why now as an adult can I not just be like a normal person who makes the most of their time outside of work instead of feeling a persistent worry that I am wasting my potential and time, sacrificing success for comfort? And also why why why did I have to ruin the same thing I ruined for myself for someone I loved very much (my mom)? Why do my unsettled feelings make me fight with my friends and cry in public and mentally shut me down right when I’m having a fun time?
Similarly to these Winnie the Pooh lyrics (dark ass song for a four-year-old to be consistently streaming, btw), I feel like Phoebe Bridgers’ lyrics frequently get caught in my head right as I’m thinking that same damn thing.
"I wish I wrote it, but I didn’t, so I learn the words.”
It’s one of a million insanely incredible one-liners the woman has written, but this one in particular has been sitting on my psyche in this flop era of mine. What if I’m not actually destined for greatness (wow, very Timmy wording of me there, apologies)? What if my fate is to enjoy greatness and admire it and talk about it all the time, but never make it?
I’m obsessive about things I love to a fault a lot of the times. Like my insistency to make whatever competition show I’m addicted to at the moment a party of that year’s birthday party (last year Traitors, this year Jeopardy), or my impulsive instinct to purchase anything chartreuse or zebra print even if I don’t like it.
It goes as far back to when I made pipe cleaner Olympic rings and taped national flags on toothpicks to the wall of my bottom bunk in my childhood bedroom as my Olympic shrine. Or my sticker wall collection that grew over something like 16 years that I cried and begged to cut out of the wall when we moved out of the house I was raised in.
I’m never chill about anything. And while that’s always been one of my favorite qualities about myself, in this era of uncertainty, it’s making me wonder if my intensity is how I’ve dealt with avoiding actually doing anything great. And it also gives me a massive identity crisis because the version of myself I want to be is nebulous and blurry, but I want to hyperfixate on it so bad. Because then, I could put all of my intense, obsessive energy toward something that brings me out of my flop era instead of towards things that distract me from my untetheredness.
I wish I wrote Everything I Know About Love, but I didn’t. So I read it over and over again. I wish I had the idea to make “Chicken Shop Date” first, but I didn’t. So I watch every drop like it’s a religious obligation. I wish I’d made a living of posting on YouTube when I was younger, but I didn’t. So now I watch influencers and content creators go on trips and get gifted products I save up for with a twinge of jealousy mixed in with my enjoyment.
I feel like I haven’t been writing here, because part of me doesn’t trust that I have anything original to actually say. Like I’m not qualified to speak if I don’t have all of the answers and a solution to the flop I’m flopping. And I also know that I haven’t been writing here, because I am scared this flop is permanent.
I know I shouldn’t look at people that I don’t want a life like to cope with mine or find hope that things will get better, but unfortunately I’m finding that everyone sort of ever feels a little uncertain all the time. And if I just keep doing what I’m doing - what I’m trying to desperately not be doing anymore - I know that I will forever feel like I’m living in a life that doesn’t belong to me anymore.
It is a confusing feeling to feel like you’ve outgrown an episode of your life all while feeling so wildly unprepared to be in the next. There is a part of me, even in my flop era sorrow, that hangs onto the peace I once felt in this skin. But that peace doesn’t exist anymore. And I wonder if I’ll really ever be able to find a place that brings me peace for longer than a season. It’s a form of grief really, mourning the you that’s expired but still having to pretend like it’s you until you find the new one.
I’ll try to be better about being here. Because as lost as I feel, there is something that makes me feel found in pouring out my deepest insecure thoughts on a public page anyone can get access to. And surely there’s some merit to turning the thing I’m current obsessed with, my flopping, into creative project of oversharing, right?
this made me feel a lot of things and i will be sending you a quote or two later 🙂↕️
Big mood