Four years ago I bought my first almost legal pack of cigarettes and smoked in front of my friend. My bag was filled with books and I remember dumping them next to the pack.

“You smoke?” she asked.

“Yeah, I tried them when my grandma died. It helped me relieve the stress somehow.” I said shrugging

“But this is like…so uncool. Vaping is a new cool thing you know?” and I thought “I don’t fucking care”.

For the last few years I’ve observed how trends evolve and target a new sort of "aesthetic”. Some of them are coming back already, the others are dusting in thrift shops on shelves and racks. When I was younger, it was hard for me to keep up with trends because everytime I asked my mother for something trendy, she was sceptical. When I asked for Playstation, she gave me books instead. When I asked for a smartphone, she refused and told me to keep my old flip phone. I never had trendy clothes and never considered myself trendy. But now you’d call my old self a whimsy, nonchalant.

I used to dream of being a trendy cool girl, just like everybody else. I remember back in middle school when 2016 hit and my popular classmates would say “I look like every other girl”. And somehow, that is what makes me pause whenever I catch myself leaning into a trend now. Suddenly everyone is reading your favourite niche books, listening to music your father showed you, and wearing clothes from thrift stores that would have gotten them bullied a few years ago. The thing that made someone interesting yesterday becomes the uniform of everyone tomorrow. Everytime I catch myself wanting to be trendy, I think that maybe I was cooler when I was uncool. When reading was a nerd thing. When being nonchalant wasn’t a forced aesthetic but just the “don’t care” attitude. As I scroll through my archives on Instagram I look into the year 2023 when I was the most uncool person but I would sell my soul to be like her again.

Trends used to feel like things we stumbled into. Now they can feel like identities delivered to us fully assembled. Performing is a strict part of participating in a trend, because it only counts if someone sees you doing it, right? How many books have you seen being recommended over and over again? “White nights”, “The bell jar”, “Just kids”, “The secret history”, anything by Sally Rooney? I’ve met a lot of people who posted aesthetic stories with those books just to admit to me, they never read it. I used to love scrolling through Pinterest saving pretty pics of pretty books without even thinking about reading them.

Month ago I got a text from my friend saying “update your Goodreads girl, I can’t believe you read so little this year”. Besides the fact I did. And is this really a crime to not live your instaworthy life? I used to love scrolling through Pinterest saving pretty pics of pretty books without even thinking about reading them. I remember a year ago searching on Tik Tok for short novels to hit my Goodreads goal. This year I laid a perfect, balanced pile of books to read for summer. A few romances, a memoir and a lot of classics. I read only two, and I finally did not feel guilty. There was something liberating about realizing that the pile was allowed to remain a pile. I didn't fail because I didn't finish it. Because no matter how much I read, I am still myself. I will not read books for statistics but only for myself. I will not be smarter if I read 100 books per year and forget about them in a month. I will not be cooler with a “Wuthering Heights" in my hand. I was cool when everybody made fun of me in 2022 for “reading too much” and now those bitches act like reading is a flex.

There’s a huge difference between finding a new hobby and performing one. It’s not a crime to get into reading because of the most posted books. There’s nothing wrong to get into “Sex and the city” because you liked the scene you saw on Tik Tok. There’s nothing wrong with listening to Sade because you liked one song that appeared on your feed. It’s fine to order black coffee over a new cinnamon latte. It’s also fine if you hate all of it and would scroll through social media with Ube Matcha while blasting Taylor Swift. But the important question is - are those things your whole personality or just an accessory to your identity? Who are you beyond the algorithm telling you to be the nonchalant unbothered girl?

And I'm not standing outside of this, because I have done it too. I've saved books because they looked beautiful on Pinterest. I've wanted things because of the person I imagined they would turn me into.

If you felt offended while reading or the title triggered you and said to yourself “is this a show about me?”, I want you to think for a second. Do you really like the taste of morning cigarettes or the fact that you look so effortless and cool with it at a coffee shop? Do you really love Joan Didion because of her style or you just saw it’s what “smart girls” read and wanted to serve that energy in the park? Do you really like black coffee because of the taste or because you’re sticking out beside all those matcha lovers? Because the problem isn't that we all like the same things, it's that we've started using taste as evidence of personality. If nobody could see your taste, your aesthetics, your Goodreads, your clothes, your Pinterest board, your Spotify Wrapped—would it still be one of your things?

After many years of watching my father working his ass off I sat down with him and my stepmother and said “Dad, you need to rest and I want you both to go on vacation.”. He said “I don’t need vacation, I need to work, I need to be here if someone needs my help”. And that made me realise, he was willing to sacrifice his peace, his health to keep working for people who need him. He was raised that way. In our family there never was a place for “no”, because that’s not what good people say. We’ve been taught that kindness means being endlessly available. “You need to stop being so nice” I said and later that night he came to my room and asked me to book them a trip. Watching my father taught me that kindness can become a habit so deeply rooted that you stop noticing when it starts hurting you.

We get mad at people who protect their time, who don’t respond immediately, who don’t solve our problems but only offer suggestions. We started treating availability as proof of kindness. If you want to be seen as “nice” you will focus on kindness given to people. But people will only notice your sacrifice once you take that away. Kindness was never supposed to mean having no needs of your own. Somewhere along the way, we started confusing being a good person with being an always available person.

Relationships survive because both people are willing to carry each other at different moments. A lot of people will say “don’t expect anything in return” but it’s normal to hope for something back. Either it’s a smile, a gift, money or just knowing that you can rely on somebody next time you need help. Because being kind or helpful aren’t your identity. You choose to be like that, and you can choose to stop.

Back in high school I read “My year of rest and relaxation” and I remember after finishing the book I checked the reviews. I flinched when I saw people didn’t like the main character “because she was bitchy to her friend Reva” while I thought she was normal, besides the obvious fact that she was struggling with her mental health. I thought that her message and needs were clear - to sleep for a whole year without being disrupted and her friend failed as she was coming over to spend some time. I would call the main character a retired people pleaser. Someone who spent years giving, performing, existing for other people’s comfort, and then one day decided she wanted nothing from anyone except space. Personally I still love this book and it made me realise helping isn’t always a gift. And having your different point of view on “what even is help?” doesn’t make you a bad person.

Gifting someone with your help happens only in relationships where you focus on giving pleasure and peace with your help. I used to be friends with a girl who didn’t understand. I often feel overwhelmed in friendships. After the first fight about this I settled for not taking a break from each other, she said “thank you”. The situation repeated not so long after and that time I said “no”. We stopped talking forever the following week. Looking back, I don’t think the problem was that she needed something from me. The problem was that she only loved the version of me that always had something to give.

Protecting peace takes years to master it, just like setting boundaries or balancing your life. We can’t expect people to stay the same and never need something bigger. Depending on the situation , taking care of yourself might be different every time and nobody should assume what you might need and expect you to be thankful because “they tried”. Trying sometimes isn’t enough, sometimes you need to take action. Saying “no” is a choice to protect yourself, and it doesn’t make you a bitch. It makes you assertive, and that trait helps you to protect yourself to finally rest. Kindness should be something we offer, not something we use to prove we deserve love.

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Two weeks later I emailed my therapist thanking for sessions but her work was done for me. Weeks later I was scrolling through social media late at night and saw multiple videos saying to take care of your young self, the inner kid. It wasn’t just my therapist, but strangers telling me to look through my past for this little girl I was.

I believe in therapy and I believe in help. When I was 18, about to start college I made a journal where I would answer honestly everyday for a few months about my past. Surrounded by my memories in my old house, with my mother in the living room I felt like that was my type of therapy. Writing everything down, while the “little girl” from pictures would look at me. I started waiting until I was healed enough to fully live. As if life was something that would begin after I fixed myself. But life wasn’t waiting. It was happening while I was trying to become a version of myself that finally deserved it. But when I left that house, I didn’t want to look through my past everyday again. In a place with no trace of “little girl”.

A few years ago Kendall Jenner went viral for a video where she says that she keeps a picture of her from childhood to remind her who she’s being mean to when she’s hating on herself. I tried to do the same thing thinking that would solve all my insecurities. It didn’t make me kinder to myself. It only reminded me that I wasn’t six anymore. But then I realised - what if we don’t want to look back? What if my childhood wasn’t a sweet colorful memory? The internet talks about childhood as if everyone left it reluctantly. Some of us were simply relieved when it ended.

I’ve read multiple articles on Substack and were part of conversation about fear of passing time. That we’re constantly worried about not being enough for a 20 year old. That we won’t get back our childhood. That we won’t succeed in anything in the next 5 years. I’m worried about it as well, and thinking about my childhood, passing time and how my body ages makes me think about death and that always paralises me for the next few minutes. I can’t look into my past without fear about the future, and yet I cannot change anything about my past.

We stopped living in the present and started focusing on fixing our past. We think more about our future than the present by saying “I’ll start tomorrow” or “Today was not the day”. The same is happening with our past, we go to therapy to solve problems, to make peace with childhood that’s gone but in reality there will always be an unresolved thread from those 18 years of childhood that we will want to resolve. Healing from the past is like counting stars. You’ll always miss one. If you spend your whole life trying to count every single one, you’ll become an observer not a discoverer of who you are.

Somewhere along the way, healing became another productivity project. We optimise routines, trauma, self-love, inner child into some slogans when in reality it’s a process. It’s not linear, it’s not a habit. It’s also not an accomplishment to love your inner child, even though the internet says that. Social media presents wellness as a set of exercises to practice in both the body and mind. In reality, it means living in harmony with the past, present, and future, but no one has a single set of practices. Each of us is different, and using one therapeutic practice based on the inner child won’t always work. If you feel chaotic or strange thinking about the past, see a psychologist, because looking at a childhood photo isn’t always enough. But if you feel like your childhood is closed to you and your life is independent of it, I wouldn’t advise looking back. I’ve come to the point where I understand how my childhood influenced me, what it shaped me, and my current goal is to focus on how this manifests in my present life.

The internet keeps telling us to revisit childhood memories. I think we should start creating memories we’ll want to revisit twenty years from now. But healing isn’t just constantly returning to one of the versions of ourselves - the child, the teenager, the confused 20 year old. It’s about paying attention to the person who is actually living your life. The child inside me isn’t the one waking up anxious before an interview or laughing with friends over dinner. I am. If I spend all my energy protecting the person I used to be, who is protecting the person I am becoming?

Part of recovery is putting labels on things that I want to remember and things that I don’t want to. The past is a place to visit, not a place to build your home. I don’t owe my younger self my entire future. I owe her the chance to become someone she always wished to become.

When I moved out I took only one picture of myself from my childhood. And if I want to protect her, I want her to stay in the past, where she belongs.

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A few days ago I was cleaning up my boyfriend’s grandfather’s house after he passed away, and I was told we can keep anything we like. A neighbour came by and picked some tools, so did my boyfriend’s father and I noticed the pattern. As twenty-year-olds, my boyfriend and I left with a wooden stool, photo frames, books, wine glasses and a basket full of threads. Older people were looking for something useful that can be repurposed - tools, devices and stuff for resale. I was looking at my boyfriend with puppy eyes to take an old vase with cat drawings. I started to wonder why young generations go more often through their parents and grandparents stuff than other generations? Some people inherit money, but what I inherited were the stories hidden inside those things.I didn’t pick up the old basket with needles and buttons that belonged to my bf’s grandmother because it was expensive. I picked it because even though I never met her, I imagined how she repaired my bf’s t-shirts when he was a kid. Like it was her emergency kit, and now it was a reminder kit for us to cherish her when we see it in our room.

Growing up in the early 2000s, I remember everything being almost oversaturated with colors and patterns. My childhood bedroom had pale yellow walls, purple furniture with a glossy finish and closet full of clothes in every color imaginable. The Hello Kitty plushies and bedsheets with characters from “Wall-e” made it feel like someone had walked into my mind. It felt warm, personal and comfortably chaotic.

As a teenager, I fell for the grey and white aesthetic that dominated Pinterest and Instagram in 2016. I wanted everything to be minimalist, hidden inside perfect white MALM dressers. I also remember how strangely distant I felt from my own room as if I had it designed to look good rather than feel like home.

Nostalgia became part of our identity, and younger generations yearn to bring back their childhood. Secondhand nostalgia allows us to mourn times we never witnessed, and it’s happening in the media through emotional framing and aestheticizing the identification. We’ve all seen trends like “childhoodcore”, “70s core”, “80s core” or “bring 2016 back”. As someone who lives in slavic Europe I remember how I yearned for those 70s aesthetic or 2016 LA girl vibe. In my country, 70s weren’t indie music, colorful silhouettes and sex revolution - my grandparents told me about being stuck in communist system and barely enjoying their lives, and after that I never used 70s hashtags. We don’t miss the seventies. We miss the version of the seventies we’ve inherited through photographs, films and carefully curated Pinterest boards. We aren’t nostalgic for history. We’re nostalgic for an aesthetic that history left behind. If nostalgia shapes how we remember time, it also shapes the spaces we choose to live in.

Another way we remember the past is through places. We can recognize the time when a given space was designed based on a particular style or color. This is best observed by browsing through archival IKEA catalogs. The years 2011 - 2018 stand out the most because this was the peak of the minimalist trend. Low-contrast colour palettes, simple shapes and focusing on practical aspects. From 2024 IKEA began bringing back some of their 70s designs. They quickly sold out and now they have become some of IKEA’s best-selling collections. They followed up with new items bringing similar vibes, using similar color palettes, and they also became viral. We make things seem vintage because the fact something is retro gives us this subconscious belief that it is durable and timeless. Our grandparents bought furniture hoping it would last 50 years - we buy furniture hoping it looks like 50 years old. IKEA didn’t simply notice the trend. It started manufacturing nostalgia. Maybe we don’t actually miss the furniture. Maybe we miss the confidence people had when they bought it. They expected to stay in one home. They expected to repair things instead of replacing them. It was something that lasted beyond trends and reminded them in future the excitement of buying furniture as a young married couple. Vintage objects weren’t designed to look timeless, they became timeless because they were designed to be used.

We don’t only want old furniture. We buy jeans that already look faded, trainers that come pre-scuffed, jackets made to imitate leather that’s been worn for decades. Even when something is brand new, we ask it to pretend it already has a history.

Streaming gives us access to everything, but ownership of almost nothing. A playlist disappears when you stop paying for a subscription. A vinyl record stays on your shelf. It collects dust, fingerprints and ages together with you. Many young people also came back to physical media. When I visit my friends a lot of them have beautiful bookshelves, cd collections or vinyl players displayed in the living room. I remember when my mother found out the “grey-and-white aesthetic” and told me DVD players aren’t cool anymore and hid it on high shelf. Getting back to physical media such as - analog cameras, CDs or vinyls remind us of the simpler time when people were free from the endless scrolling on social media. Physical media gives the opportunity to set boundaries between digital life and the real one. Where one stops and where the other begins. We also use the second hand CD players inherited from our grandparents. Vinyl collection from a strange old lady at a flea market. Disposable camera from older cousin that used it in her 2000s party girl era.

We inherit the feelings and stories stuck in the devices. We know people we never met through their belongings. A skipping on a vinyl record tells me someone loved one song enough to play it hundreds of times. A set of two teacups with chipped edges makes me wonder if it belongs to an old couple drinking their morning tea together or to mother and daughter sipping on cold coffee for dessert. A cookbook stained with oil tells me somebody made that recipe over and over again. Every imperfection is evidence of habits long after people are gone.

Vintage became a comfort zone, but it isn’t only about the past. If it existed before us, remembering people we barely knew, it will become a stable point of our life. A reminder that we might have to fix, use it, appreciate and take care and still not be replaced. A reminder that someone will find our things too and wonder who we were.

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They stick to the classics - Elizabeth and Darcy (Pride and Prejudice), Rapunzel and Eugene (Tangled), Noah and Allie (The Notebook), Juliette and Warner (Shatter me series), Kat and Patrick (10 things I hate about you), Padme and Anakin (Star Wars episode I - III), Evelyn and Celia (Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo), Bridget and Rhys (Twisted Games) and so on. They mention fictional couples, celebrities or people they’ve never met but somehow are trying to relate to.

You may wonder why there’s so many examples? They all have one thing in common - the willingness to sacrifice everything for love. When we say ‘I wish to be in love like them,’ we are not choosing couples, we are choosing fantasies that shape how we expect future relationships to look. Expectations save our lives and set boundaries but they also make perfectionism go crazy and we all want our love life to be perfect. The fact is, it never is. I’ve always wanted to have my own Mr. Darcy or my own Anakin, but I’m not an english lady nor the galactic senator and queen. I’ve always been obsessed with romance. I looked at my high school friends with jealousy when they started dating, then sat alone in my room binge-watching “Normal People” or replaying “La La Land,” wondering if I was more like Mia or Marianne.

Fictional people are safe to love. Mr. Darcy will never ghost you because Jane Austen won’t let him. Noah will always write the letters, because that’s how the story has to go. Aaron Warner will never wake up one day and decide he isn’t ready for commitment. Eugene will always climb the tower because every fairytale knows when love is supposed to arrive. Their love is guaranteed, ours isn’t. Real people don’t get a script. They get bad days, bad timing, insecurities, and the possibility of leaving.

I know it feels good to be a hopeless romantic, rewatching the same movie or rereading the same romance book and saving up favourite fanarts, edits of characters. I remember craving the perfect book boyfriend, which was Aaron Warner from the “Shatter me” series. I was obsessed with him and remember gasping at every edit about him. I still can recite from heart the “You’ve bewitched me body and soul” scene from Pride and Prejudice. I still cry when I hear for the 100th time Noah saying “My dearest Allie”. And I know what you might think about me “bitch is lucky because she found love on a dating app and came here to judge us because we don’t believe in those”. And honestly? That’s a valid reaction. But the thing is I’m not someone who would promote using dating apps. I’m not someone who says my boyfriend was perfect from the beginning. We both met after getting out of toxic relationships and it took us some time to understand what kind of love we need and what makes us feel like in a movie. The thing is to notice potential in somebody and a good soul. Because you can work on so many behaviors and your expectations when someone has good intentions toward you and is willing to change for you, and that doesn’t come just from a pretty face and good body.

We crave something that is perfect in its imperfection. We have a certain vision for the arguments the couple have - one person storming out, the other runs after them after they realise they were wrong. No silent treatment or overcoming the guilt. A certain vision for their issues - they decide to take a break from each other but end up chasing and running through an airport for the kiss that proves “it’s not over”. We don’t fantasize about arguing about work schedules, or shopping at 9PM together or trying to drop hints on perfect birthday gifts. We deny that even perfection is imperfect and relationships are made up of people, carefully written scripts. All those imperfections make the relationships real and give you reason to talk with your partner, be honest to each other and try to understand them more.

I remember being truly embarrassed to admit to my friends I’ve met my boyfriend on a dating app. We demonise them, assuming there is always something unsafe waiting there. That dating apps killed romance, but this is the twenty-first century and we won’t get spotted as the mysterious beauty at movies. We won’t be seen getting fruits at the market in Italy and then wait a year for the lover to finally find us. We meet on social media, dating apps - ghost, go on terrible dates, block numbers, delete and download apps again to just keep trying. I went on terrible dates with people I met online, and each one taught me what to avoid and what to notice.

My boyfriend isn’t a book boyfriend pinned to Pinterest boards. He’s a guy who was raised by his mother and taught to notice small things. I didn’t go on dates with him because he was just pretty or smart, but because when we had to pick a movie for the date, he never questioned me. I said I wanted to see “Priscilla” and he said “When are you free?”.Because he asked me out with a paper ring after I told him I love Taylor Swift. Because when I told him I consider letters romantic, he wrote them for a year. I’ve spent years thinking a romantic gesture was a monologue after you walk through fog to your lover, but in reality love is driving an hour so I wouldn’t have to get home alone, or understand when I need touch, silence or advice.

Many of us learn what healthy love looks like through relationships that didn’t show it first. Every generation inherits its romantic fantasies from the media it grows up with. Just like I used to save pictures of my favourite characters, I remember when my grandmother showed me a file full of magazines cut outs of her favourite singer. I had a picture of Darcy’s hand flex for so long on my wall it reminded me how my mother had pages from her favourite romance book. We’re fluent in fictional romance but illiterate in ordinary love.

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When your parents divorce, guilt doesn't belong to one person. It spills onto everyone. When I was living with my mother I remember all the late night talks about my father. According to my mother, he was cruel. The kind of man who could lie without blinking.

I remember sitting in my room with a small mirror in hand studying every detail of my face that reminded me of him. My bushy, dark eyebrows, hazel eyes, rosy, round cheeks and big nose. I'd sit with the only photograph I had of my father, comparing our faces. If she hated my dad this much, does this mean it she never really meant when she called me pretty? I wasn’t always looking for similarities, I was trying to understand why being like my dad was my curse.

In my neighbourhood, everyone knew my father, they also knew about divorce. Every time my mother and I went out, we'd run into elderly women who would sympathize with her before turning to me and saying, "You look just like your mother." But I never did. My mother's dyed blonde hair, greenish eyes, and small lips looked nothing like mine. She was always relieved to hear that I was nothing like my "evil dad." I would always frown, because I knew we didn't look alike.

I not only had the face of the man my mother truly hated but also the personality, and each time I argued with her she used a curse “You’re just like your father.”. She never told me why the biggest insult from her was comparing us, because he was a part of me.

When me and my mom argued she used to say “one more word, and you’ll start new life at your dad’s” and for so many years I thought it was just a saying. Besides, it can’t be that bad to live with your other parent, right? I moved from my mother twice.

Once to my dad when I was 17 after fight with my mom. I packed my books, clothes and my laptop, that was all I needed. I was so proud of myself to leave my mom but then, when we arrived at my dad’s house I saw strangers. People I’ve only heard about, in a house from my childhood memories that looked nothing alike. I stayed one night in dad’s childhood room upstairs. The next morning I packed one backpack, called my mother to ask for bus fare, and cried the entire way home. I had lived with my father for less than twenty-four hours. I wasn’t part of his life, all the pictures of me were replaced by new family and yet I was the one cursed, with his face and personality that caused me so many issues. He could replace a family. I couldn't replace the part of him that lived in me.

When I came back, it felt as though my mother finally believed I would always choose her.

The second time I moved to my dad was at 19. I remember after a huge fight, gasping for air on the living room floor nearly having panic attack. I remember shoving my clothes into my bag, my books, my laptop and everything that reminded me of my partner, my grandparents and who I really am. I didn’t leave with one bag. I left with ten of them. And there I was again, in strangers house but this time they weren’t just peeking. they were treating me like everyone else. I remember not being able to unpack because my stepmother served me dinner and my dad asked me “what do you need?”. Nobody asked me that for years. I wasn't used to being asked. I didn’t know what. When my dad asked me what my favourite food was, I realized I couldn't remember. It took me three months before I had an answer. My mother called my dad many times asking how I’ve been, he always said it’s not her business.

It’s been two years since I live with my dad and my stepmom and I’m not hiding anymore in my father’s old childhood room. I have my own one here. For those two years I’ve tried to hate my dad, to be mad at him like I used to be at my mom when we lived together. But I can’t hate him. Not when we both get coffee downstairs in the morning, when we smoke cigarette on patio or when we get in the car and listen to music. For many years I thought I was a bad kid, the unlovable one. I also believed my father couldn’t love me because he was the worst. But the worst thing was believing that being like my dad made me a bad unlovable person.

Sometimes when I sit with my dad at dinner across from each other I scan his face like I did with mine as a kid. We both have white hairs among our dark hair, tired eyes and rosy, round cheeks. I can’t hate my father, because that would mean I hate myself.

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I always carried a notebook with me in case I came up with a brilliant idea. A potential new post, a story, a photo, a collage. I had a separate folder for these kinds of notes in my phone’s notes. For the past few weeks, it’s been empty, and every day I try to write something unrelated to my studies, I feel depressed. And then that cursor blinks at me cynically for a few minutes, which turn into hours, and then days. I’m furious with life, which has consumed me and robbed me of my ability to write. My ability to observe. My ability to be, not just to live.

When I started writing here, I had no problem coming up with a topic. However, as soon as I started my bachelor’s year, I began to orbit around several topics, thus remaining only within their field. Whenever I sit down to write, my mind goes blank, and my thoughts choke in a vacuum of uncreativity. Every triviality, every everyday thing, seems trivial and unworthy of writing. For me, this is a moment of realization—were those in the art world right? The better your life is, the harder it will be to create?

The thing is, I don’t feel artist’s block. On the contrary, I can’t wait to write the projects I have to pass. However, everyday life outside of the artistic sphere consumes me completely. Every evening, before I even pick up a book, I’m already asleep with the cat next to me and the lights on. My unfolded books and my running computer regularly observe me as I pass them by.

I’m going through a strange period where there’s no room for art, even though I talk about it, think about it, study it, and breathe it in. Maybe because it’s become my everyday life? My study, my work, my passion. I wouldn’t be me without it, and when I’m not creating for myself, I feel disconnected. Like returning to an empty house. When, instead of observing passersby in cafes and pondering new ideas, I have to go back and do the damn laundry or make a stupid dinner.

For as long as I can remember, creating has been important to me. More important than the final result was the process itself. I loved spending hours working on new projects. It made me feel like I was in a good place in life, where I could allow myself to be an artist and forget about the world. For me, it’s an escape and, at the same time, a reconciliation with my true self. Moving away from these feelings, I feel like I’m losing touch with my base and walking a path I’ve wanted to avoid for years. These thoughts are always accompanied by guilt. I’m angry with myself when I surrender to reality and forget about art. Because I’m wasting my opportunities at art school. Because I’m wasting this precious time.

It drives me crazy. To the fury that spills out in every conversation with my friends. But there is no way to avoid triviality. Being an artist isn’t just living in a state of inspiration and a blissful creative high. It’s finding time for art. It’s desperate attempts to connect with beauty and recategorize what beauty is. It is life in the shadow of ordinary humanity. And no art school will prepare you for that.

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I remember a time in my life when I treated the word “sorry” like a comma. I apologized to everyone for everything. I felt I had to. I apologized for every delayed reply to a message. For even the smallest oversight. Sometimes for existing. If I died, I know that after death, I would whisper a final “sorry” to my loved ones for such an unfortunate and inappropriate change.

Being the child of divorced parents means an apology is always appropriate. When I realized what divorce was and started connecting the dots — my parents didn’t get divorced until I was 4 years old — I realized one thing: I was the reason for the divorce. So I apologized. For everything. For every bad day my mom had. For not hearing from my dad. For my mom’s ruined life. For my dad’s ruined life. But has anyone apologized to me for my ruined childhood? I guess only myself after many years, when I realized how tired I was.

In a sense, apologizing was a reflex for me. When someone in my life was having a bad day, I apologized as if I were in charge of their lives. My current boyfriend just brought this to my attention.

My previous boyfriend, on the other hand, saw it as a sign of empathy and my need to care for my loved ones. I think that’s why I’m no longer with him, because he expected me to always take care of everyone. I apologized often back then, but when I heard him apologize for the first time, I flew into a rage.

“Why didn’t you leave me sooner? What was that for?”

“I don’t know, Natalia, I’m sorry.”

And then I felt like turning the whole house upside down. “I’m sorry” sounded like a form of courtesy that needed to be included in this conversation. He never apologized for cheating, for calling me names—he apologized for wasting my time. Which, of course, could be considered nice, but what was I supposed to do with that apology? Stick it up my ass? I can’t get the time back.

That’s when I stopped apologizing. When I had a fight with my dad because he’d simply stood me up at Christmas, I said I wouldn’t offer my hand first. Eventually, my grandmother gathered the two of us together at home.

“Apologize to your dad.”

“For what? Why me?”

That was the moment I realized that apologizing is a privilege.

“Because he’s older than you, and you always have to apologize to older people, whether you did something wrong or not.”

After that, I decided that I was definitely done apologizing. It wasn’t pride, but a matter of rebuilding myself. If I kept apologizing, I would never have become who I am now. Back then, there was an opinion about me that I was a cold bitch, but I thought that a cold bitch was better than a constant crybaby.

Like every diet and every detox, apologies came back to me like a boomerang. When I moved out of my mom’s house, I felt that need again to constantly apologize. I lost all my confidence, and all the walls around me crumbled. Like a doll, I dragged myself behind those holding my puppet hands. So, to feel safe, I started apologizing. For every bad day, for arguments that weren’t my fault. Like Christ, I took all the blame.

Sometimes I think my boyfriend is going crazy because he saw that my apology wasn’t an act of empathy, but of defense. Because if I apologize, then I sympathize. And if I sympathize, then I want to help, right? Not entirely. For years, this gave me a false sense of peace it’s better to listen to a few complaints than to argue. Everything changed when I realized I wasn’t obligated to apologize. It took me a long time to regain that confidence to believe that apologies aren’t just some petty emotional currency.

During one session, when I was talking about my sense of responsibility, my therapist asked:

“Are all these people you apologize to for the smallest thing five years old and need your constant care?”

“No,” I replied uncertainly.

“Then why the hell are you worrying so much? They’re adults. I’m not encouraging you to ignore and neglect your relationships, but if you don’t take care of yourself, what kind of relationship is that? If your sorry is a comma it won’t mean anything to them either when you have to apologize in a serious way.”

I’m gradually stopping apologizing, setting my own boundaries. Sometimes I step outside the bounds of good manners and fuck what. The therapist was damn right. I’m not sorry for the curse. Or for being rude. Because sometimes you have to be a cold bitch to finally be yourself. And I’m not ashamed to look in the mirror and see that the stone cold bitch is back and ready to strike.

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When we’re all born, Saturn’s somewhere and the Saturn cycle takes around about twenty-nine years

That’s when we gotta wake up and smell the coffee

Because if we’ve just been sort of relying on our cleverness

Or relying—, you know, just kind of floating along

Saturn comes along and hits you over the head, and says, “Wake up”

Aha, it’s time for you to get real about life and sort out who you really are
— Diana Garland

The more intensely I feel alive that my blood is pumping, that the pages of my calendar are tearing away faster and faster the more I feel how much time I’ve already wasted.

For as long as I can remember, death and transience have always seemed to me to be something tangible, a warm breath on the back of my neck. Every day, when I had a cold, was tired, or was sad, I would lie in bed and absentmindedly scroll through the internet and think: I am wasting time that others would give anything for.

I grew up in a family of workaholics for whom time is sacred and rest is a sin. There is no second place. Either you are the best or you are nothing.

For years, I watched my mother work herself to the bone at a job she hated, and my father picking up every side gig so I could have everything.

And myself in the mirror with dark bags under my eyes, which I learned to cover with makeup at a too-young age. With the ritual of making coffee and the first gray hairs at the temples.

I started school at six and finished at fourteen.

I started high school as a child and finished as an adult, 18 year old with a lifelong plan.

A bachelor’s degree by 21. Then a master’s. Maybe a PhD before 30.

Because thirty is almost half a life, right? (Or so I thought at the time.) You have to achieve something by then.

In high school, I had a routine: waking up at five, putting on coffee and makeup, classes, tutoring, studying until I fell asleep with a book on my face. By the end, I felt so much pressure on myself that I felt embarrassed to go to bed any earlier than fifteen hours on my feet.

I considered those days wasted, no matter how much I accomplished. I think what I needed most back then was someone to lock me in a cage and throw away the key. Someone who would say: fifteen is not the age to chase expectations.

But I had a mother who just wanted me to “at least manage.” I managed, I always did, but at what cost? And when I left for college, everything slowed down—and sometimes, when I feel like I’m suffocating again, I think back to that breathless run. We never stop orbiting our parents’ expectations, even when we think we’ve broken free.

I started thinking about my own death. I quickly calculated the age difference between my grandfather and me. I was ten years old.

My grandfather was seventy-five when he died. He was thirty-something when he started a family. It turned out I didn’t have much time left. I’m one-seventh of my grandfather’s life and I’m just a stupid kid.

— from my novel

I remember the first time I started thinking about death. This feeling comes back to me constantly in moments when I suddenly feel like my body isn’t mine, that everything is temporary. Then I start trembling with fear. In a panic, I start planning how to leave my mark.

I’ll write something great.

I’ll do something great.

I’ll become an anecdote, a memory, a legend at the family table.

Anything to avoid dying. As long as this time I have doesn’t slip through my fingers.

When exactly should we take a breath in life?

Is there even time for that?

When do we need to know who we are?

Sometimes I feel like in this rush, we shouldn’t even look for a moment to breathe. Because to understand that we’re already adults, sometimes you have to inhale so deeply that your hands smell of mascara and your mouth smells of coffee. It’s a cultural tradition that turning twenty is the moment when you have to know who you are and where you’re going.

Which is absolute bullshit.

Since I was twelve, I dreamed of writing. And yet, I strayed from that path so many times that I thought I’d never even touch it. People think I had it easy that I simply stumbled upon a college that fulfilled my childhood dream. But fulfilling that dream cost me disappointment in my mother.

Sometimes I think I lost my relationship with her because I walked alone down a path she didn’t know. But isn’t that what parents want? So that we can move forward – even if not in the direction they dreamed of? Maybe that’s the part of adulthood we never thought about earlier. We are losing our relations with family, friends, and ourselves? Or maybe you can never be ready for losing — family, time, friends, chances. We all believe in second times but there is none which scares the shit out of me.

But maybe adulthood isn’t about stopping being afraid of death, but about finally starting to live without the thought that everything has to be done in time. Because time will catch up with us anyway.

They say Saturn returns to remind you who you are. Maybe that’s what this all is — a reminder. That I’m still here, still figuring it out, still learning how to live in a body that runs on borrowed time.

Maybe Saturn doesn’t hit you over the head to hurt — maybe just to wake you up enough to realize:
you’re alive.

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As the whole world knows, a new album from Taylor Swift dropped, The Life of a Showgirl, and well… the opinions are mixed. I’m not here to talk about the album (even tho I could), but about a realisation I got after listening to TLOAS and reading all the reviews.

In one of my previous posts, “You don’t have to ruin your life to write about it,” I mentioned my fear of running out of tragics in my life of losing my “inspos.” How I felt bad for getting better because that would make me a bad artist. In a recent interview about the album, Taylor mentioned her fear of losing fans because she’s finally writing about her happiness. Glad to hear that billionaires like Taylor feel similar to me about it.

Is The Life of a Showgirl my favorite Taylor album? No. But I’m fascinated by what’s happening around it. The idea of Showgirl had appeared before in I Can Do It With a Broken Heart. Back then, TTPD also received a lot of hate, mainly because the millionaire was trying to descend to the level of an “ordinary person.” “Lights, camera, bitch, smile in stilettos for miles” stopped being a mantra and became a point of reference for many people. After all, in the internet age, we all live by the motto “fake it till you make it.”

The Life of a Showgirl quickly gained a reputation as the album of “a high school girl fixated on her boyfriend.” And, paradoxically, this term fits perfectly. Cheesy, a little tacky. But that’s precisely why it’s so true. I immediately remember the scene from Euphoria when Cassie first appears with Nate in the school hallway. That exact moment. That feeling of shame we all know and that we still go through. Cassie’s scene wasn’t fiction, it was a documentary.

When I started high school, I realized that being a woman meant being a performer. You’re thrown into a sick circus, given face paint, and forced to act out a scene. Every morning, you repeat the same thing: you wake up, put on some version of yourself, and play it to the best of your ability—mother, daughter, student, friend, sister, you name it. That’s how we become showgirls—female performers in sparkling costumes, watched for entertainment, sometimes for the downfall.

Showgirls have always had a bad reputation: attention-seeking, skimpy, seemingly empty. But isn’t that the same thing said today about ordinary girls on Instagram who post photos from the beach?

The moment puberty hits us is the moment we start performing femininity with full force. Suddenly, we realize that the audience has always been male, they were the ones sitting in the audience, judging, laughing, applauding.

And maybe that’s why the word showgirl fits so perfectly that moment in high school, the early twenties, when everything feels like a test. Your friends are suddenly mad because you have a boyfriend. Rumors spread that you do everything “for guys.” If you talk about sex, you’re immature. If you don’t, you’re boring.

“We have mirrorballs in the middle of the dance floor because they reflect light, they are broken a million times and that’s what makes them so shiny. We have people like that in society. They hang, and every time they break it entertains us.”
— Taylor Swift, The Long Pond Studio Session

Sometimes I feel like I’m a Showgirl too. I try to sprinkle glitter on even the greatest tragedy to make it beautiful. From folklore on, I’ve felt a strong connection to “Mirrorball,” and I know this song resonates with the whole idea of ​​”The Life of a Showgirl.” Because life is all about fulfilling expectations what we should and shouldn’t be. What we’re supposed to be. Or maybe not be at all? We’re born to perform a show, then leave the stage when we’re no longer shining. And when we’re exhausted, to sparkle with tears in the spotlight.

As women, we’ve always been at the center, especially if you’re Taylor Swift. Always watched, always judged. In pop culture, female adolescence is dressed up as something sublime, poetic, and pastel. But the truth is, growing up is messy. It’s drama that comes out of nowhere, obsessions that feel too big, the desperate need to prove something to anyone who might be watching.

And maybe that’s exactly what Taylor captured this time. Not tragedy, not perfection, but the blur between both. She reminded us that we’ll never love happy artists because happiness isn’t that dramatic, that we crave heartbreak because it feels cinematic. And we settle expectations for the artist, not always for ourselves. But maybe there’s art in joy, too. We all just need to switch the perspective no matter the gender.

Because being a showgirl was never about the audience. It was about the act of showing up and performing at all.

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-Are you okay?

-Yeah, I got my girls.

[Friends, season 4, episode 20]

For as long as I can remember, I’ve longed for girl friends. Not acquaintances, not guy friends—real girl friends. The kind with whom I’d spend the best time of my life. I wanted to have a whole entourage around me that gets along with each other. The group you go to the bathroom with in high school. The kind of group you’d drink to over successes and breakups with. The kind of group who would eventually become my children’s aunts.

As a feminist, I’ve always believed in sisterhood that in moments of real danger, every woman becomes your friend. She’ll lend you a hand, become a counselor, an advocate, and a comforter for a moment. But do we, as women, have to unite only in times of tragedy?

When I was a child, I said my best friends were my grandmother and mother. That was my first “girl group.” The group I confessed to. But as is typical in three-person groups, my grandmother listened most attentively, and my mother sat somewhere nearby.

In kindergarten, I observed what a “real” group of friends looked like. I wanted to be part of it so badly that I constantly changed who I was. I was like jelly, flowing through groups, leaving a sticky trail. I never really stayed anywhere because I didn’t feel like myself anywhere. But what wouldn’t you do for the sake of desire?

I’ve been changing for nineteen years of my life. I’ve adapted to my surroundings like a chameleon, catching up on what might impress others. I’ve constantly been chasing the need to belong. I’d quietly watch “Friends” and “Sex and the City,” praying in the evenings that I’d one day have friends like that. Because that’s what femininity is all about, right? Unity? Relationships?

I drifted between places and between people’s fingers. I’d be in each group for a short while, and I always felt like my mother—that listener, a bit overlooked. Everything was unstable: someone would disappear, the group would fall apart, everyone would go their separate ways. And I still wanted my Rachel, Monica, and Phoebe. My Miranda, Samantha, Carrie, and Charlotte.

I’ve always had trouble connecting people close to me into one place. I’ve tried many times. My closest friends were forced to get to know each other, yet so far apart. They never started a new group chat, never met me for coffee in a group. I never managed to be the glue.

I focused on individual relationships, in each of them I was a different version of myself, and it worked. So why didn’t my other versions fit into other relationships? Did they not like me for who I was?

I’m twenty years old. Relatively young, I know what you’re thinking: “What do you know about life, girl?” The thing is, I’ve always wanted friends. I wanted honest people. My mother always said honesty is sacred. So I wanted sincere, genuine friends.

I was willing to adapt to fulfill my childhood vision. The vision that feminism instilled in me that every woman is the same, that sisterhood is an automatic click. People just don’t click sometimes. Relationships don’t work, no matter what we do.

Would I like my own close-knit group? Absolutely. But I appreciate each and every one of my friends. Each one has experienced something different with me. Each one is completely different. And I know that each of them is in my life for a purpose. Instead of running to one place, I have options. I know which one can best help me with a given problem. These little women form my immune system against all the bullshit in my life. These little women will not be the same. They will not be one voice. They will be a cacophony, always proving to me that there are a million solutions to everything.

To my beloved girls who I know support me here and read my stuff - thank you so so much for being here for me. Special credits for Ola and Kamila, I love you my babygirls! I know Marta (my bfs mum) ain’t reading this but she’s my friend as well and I know she’s supporting me in being myself (a writer).

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As a child, I knew who I wanted to be. First a fashion designer, then a writer, and finally a literature teacher. Everyone said these were silly dreams and I’d never achieve them. But it was they who allowed me to understand who I really needed to be to feel like myself. To be cool in my own eyes.

After my fifteenth birthday, I started wishing for the same thing every year. Alternately: be cool or happy. I thought one thing depended on the other. That if I became the popular girl who fit the trends, I’d automatically be happy. But how could I be “the cool one” when, in my eyes, everyone else wasn’t cool?

I was never popular. But I always wanted to be.

In preschool, I was labeled a “theatre child.” Girls laughed at me on the playground, and I wanted to be like them – in a close group, exchanging glances and secrets, as if they spoke a language I would never understand. Being the teacher’s favorite meant nothing to me. I wanted to be one of the cool girls.

So much so that one day I got too close to one of them. I stared at her like a picture and… I got hit by a swing. I walked around with a bruise for a week, and the kindergarten teachers banned me from going near the swings. Nor to those girls. Should’ve take that as a sign.

It was similar in elementary school. Feminism disappointed me then, because sisterly support and female friendships were suddenly nonexistent. The boys stuck with me because I was convenient. I helped with homework, and we made fun of the popular girls because, in their eyes, I was always “different”: too fat, too nerdy, too boring.

I had a group of “tomboys” who liked me, but as it happens, those relationships fell apart. But I hated looking in the mirror and seeing a tomboy. I hated pretending I didn’t care about fashion. That books were foreign to me. That reading was torture. This disguise began to suffocate me. Eventually, I gave up – because how long can you play a clown?

High school was even weirder. It was there that I first understood why I couldn’t be “cool.” I was the least popular person in my class. The boys turned everyone against me, the girls saw me as a strange rival, and I simply wanted to survive until college. So I was myself. I studied, looked like a library kid, and only talked to teachers. In their eyes, I was fascinating, in the eyes of my peers, boring. And that’s when I realized how crucial context is. The same “me,” but the perception was completely different.

At art school, everything turned around. Suddenly, I was popular. Talked to in the corridors, drawn into conversations, listened to. If you’ve seen Mean Girls, you know what I mean. I felt like Cady, in the middle of the group I’d previously been so envious of.

But I quickly discovered the dark side. Popularity was all about gossip, duplicity, endless comparisons. Was this supposed to be happiness? How could you be happy if you had to talk shit about others every day at lunch? How could you have the energy for every outing, every dramatic conversation, every pressure? Because what do you mean I have to drink to be a great writer? To not like romance to be a valid reader. To be niche to be ineteresting. To always not try so hard to look effortless. I was born for trying. I’ve tried so many different things and would do that in every single life.

I’m graduating this year, and I only recently realized I didn’t want to play that game anymore. Popularity sets boundaries, it tells you who you should be, how you should look, how you should fit into a stereotype. And I no longer wanted to be the stereotypical “cool girl.” Or the stereotypical “nerdy girl.” I wanted to be whoever truly screamed my name.

It was this group of supposedly uncool people, those who don’t push themselves to the forefront, that finally made me feel interesting and cool. These are people who, in my eyes, would certainly win the leading role, but they often don’t place themselves in it. They don’t put me in it either unless we’re both main characters. I’m not the background or the focal point. I’m part of this picture, with my own aspects that are accepted and considered interesting by others. by others, maybe boring. But maybe the point of being the it-cool girl is to be cool in your own eyes, not in everyone’s?

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I feel like I've always been searching for a place in my life that I could call home. It didn't matter what that home was—an apartment, a city, or even a person. I tossed between addresses, people, and spaces, but nothing seemed to fit. Only recently have I realized how difficult it is to discover your own definition of home.

They say that if a place constantly draws you in, it's a sign that it's meant to be. That's exactly how it was with London. From my first visit, I felt like an invisible thread was pulling me closer and closer. In two years, I've returned three times, and soon there will be a fourth. And I know this is just the beginning.It was in London that I ran around in pajama dresses with sunstroke, paradoxically feeling the best in the world. It was there that I first felt I could do anything – that there was nothing I couldn't achieve. London was to me what Hollywood or New York is to others. I felt like I was always meant to be born there. No matter where I was, I always knew the way.

But… is it really possible to live there and not lose that charm? I don't think so. If London became my everyday reality, it would cease to be a symbol of dreams. That's why I kept looking for a home elsewhere.

The problem is that I never felt at home in my own home. Instead, I loved other people's homes – the ones I visited only briefly, without photos or mementos to remind me I belonged there. It was this strangeness that gave me peace. Zero responsibilities, zero memories. Just walls, and the rest was built by people.

The first "foreign house" I fell in love with was my childhood friend Alex's. Objectively: her house was simply brilliant. A pool, a huge attic room, her own pouffe, and amazing furniture. And then there was her mom, who always baked fresh bread and fed us on the patio. It was a house where no one judged anyone, even when their family was going through a difficult time.

I spent all my summers there until we outgrew this ritual. Then I'd return to my own house, the one that always carried with it anxiety. "Did I wash the dishes? Did I clean my room? Did I slam the door?" The constant fear of doing something wrong.

A few years later, Inez came into my life. Her house was similar to Alex's—open, full of questions and interest in my world. Her parents knew what I was doing, asking about exams and dreams. Something my own house was missing. I spent the entire summer before college with her. And we were slowly drifting off. Her house was similar to Alex's but I have never lived in one of them. It was hard to keep me there. It was strange type of house for me. A normal home.

But when the tables were turned and Inez came to visit me, discomfort set in. My mother's voice buzzed in my head: "Will she be here long? I won't cook for you. Doesn't that girl have her own home?" And then I wondered – did my friends' parents also have similar thoughts about me? Was I some kind of parasite to them?

Today my beloved home is the home of my partner - Max. A small apartment where you have to brush shoulders in the kitchen when you pass someone else. And yet… it's where I feel like I can breathe deeply. There, I'm not afraid to leave the bathroom door open while brushing my teeth. There, instead of overwhelming, the walls envelop us. Everyone has their place, everyone is a cog in the machine – even me. And finally, it makes sense.

Max's house dispelled the memories of my own apartment. The layout of the rooms is similar, the atmosphere familiar, but everything is different. Safer. Cleaning the kitchen here is a reflex of affection, not a duty under pressure. Maybe that's the point, that "home" changes when people's energy changes?

Max's mom always remembered what sandwiches I liked and what I couldn't eat. He always had fresh sheets for me and a box for my things. There was always a place for me to come, even if I dropped by unannounced. Sometimes his mom wouldn't say much, but her glances were enough. I saw pride, compassion, and warmth in them.

Sometimes I felt like I was betraying my birthplace, because that home wasn't just my cruel mother. It was my grandparents, whom I loved most in the world. But their spirit was already fading. There were no photos on the shelves. There wasn't the smell of Grandma's cakes or her dinners in the air. Grandpa's shaving kit wasn't in the bathroom. After I moved out, I knew the same thing had happened to me. I knew my mother would hide my photos, my unclaimed belongings. The scent of my perfume and tea would fade from the background. But ultimately, she would never forget that that one small room to the right of the entrance was mine. Those walls still remembered my voice, and one day they would whisper it again.

At first, I thought it was simple: "my boyfriend is my home." But I quickly realized it was more complicated. London still calls to me with its magnetism, and with Max, I feel like I've found a space that has always been waiting just for me.

So where is my home? I don't think I know yet. Maybe there will never be just one, but rather several, each needed at a different time in life. Because home doesn't have to be a place. Home is sometimes a person. Or a memory. Or a dream you keep coming back to in your mind.

This what growing up is all about – that home ceases to be an address and becomes a feeling?

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Max if you are reading this, thank you for making my art happier and making me a much more rational artist ily ‪♡

When you move away from someone or they simply die, there comes a moment when you stop remembering their voice, their laugh, their nicknames for you. One night after Grandma Steph’s death, I woke up drenched in sweat with one thought — I don’t remember her voice anymore. Three years had passed since the funeral, not so long ago. I lay in bed for an hour, trying to recall how she laughed, how she used to playfully accentuate her words. (from the novel I wrote)

When I wrote a short story about how nostalgia would always be a weight on my ankle, dragging me back to the past, I knew it would be the cause of my death. Every memory is a return to places I shouldn't have visited, inflicting micro-wounds on me. They say nostalgia is a feeling that only comes later in life. And by the time I was twenty, I could already feel it bursting inside me.

I have tremendous respect for memories—not only because I once had a great memory, but also because less and less evidence of their existence remains with me. When I moved, I took very little with me, compared to how meticulously documented my childhood was.

I had stolen wedding photos of my grandparents, a photo of my grandmother with my uncle (the one the family hated), one photo with my grandfather, several photos of my great-grandparents and people I was never told about. I didn't have a single photo of myself as a child, which I think is telling. I've never been lonely. I was always surrounded by family, it was always noisy, every seat on the armchairs and sofas was occupied, and I sat on the carpet, watched by the eyes of my loved ones.

In the boxes, I also found a bottle of my grandfather's aftershave—used only on special occasions—his collection of cameras from Soviet Russia, my grandmother's ring and earrings, which had long since gone out of style, two of my grandfather's watches, one of them with a calculator function, a cassette tape of Tosca, and a million memories. My grandparents were like parents to me for many years, so losing our shared stories hurt the most. Johnny (my grandpa) also had a camera. In a drawer in the old house, neatly stacked cassette tapes from my childhood—birthdays, holidays, trips to the zoo and parks. I was the main actress in my grandparents' lives and I wanted to be the one whose name appeared in the credits.

I started wondering — since I don’t remember my grandparents’ voices after they died, does that mean the little girl in the mirror with the gap in her teeth and pigtails also died? If so, where is her body? I want to visit her grave, leave flowers and lanterns so she knows I remember her. Maybe she hid under the tombstone and lies curled up next to my grandparents’ coffins, just as she lay beside Johhny’s bed before he died. (again the quote from my novel)

As a child, I watched these recordings maniacally, flipping through every photo I developed, amazed by the dedication of my grandparents, who were dedicated to documenting every detail of my life. It was as if I wanted to memorize them. As if I knew I would need them every day of my life. When I moved far from my memories, and my own mother forbade me from accessing the place where they were kept, I began replaying the images in my head every night. I pieced together frames from scraps of memories, filling in the gaps. I knew I wouldn't be able to recover all the material evidence of the past for a long time, but I didn't want my memory to dwindle.

Nostalgia is an experience of increasingly younger people today. Those born at the turn of the '90s and '00s recognize the same symbols: powder/popping powder, the first Barbie movies, temporary tattoos, colorful hair ties, plastic furniture from IKEA's children's section, "Coke-flavored" drinks that tasted better than Coke, or boomboxes from McDonald's that played "Single Ladies."

I live for nostalgia and I believe it will be my end. I surrender to it without resistance and love being carried along by its wave. I love her memory for detail, but most of all, it reminds me that the little girl from my childhood will always live on inside me. And everything I do, I do for her. In my family, there is a tradition of leaving unsmoked cigarettes at graves, and even though I am an occasional smoker who treats cigarettes like a toxic ex, but I always leave cigarette for my grandparents. Because that's what I was taught. Because I hope that when nostalgia hits me, someone will leave me cigarette butts by the marble slab.

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Art must be beautiful. Artist must be beautiful. - Marina Abramowicz

This will be a personal piece. I'm writing it as someone who has long struggled with a certain belief ever since I started creating.

I've always heard that to be a good artist, you have to suffer. That you have to be unhappy, poor, mired in mental chaos or illness. That trauma is a fundamental creative tool. And if you add stimulants – alcohol, cigarettes, drugs – all the better. In the artistic world, addiction is not only not stigmatized, but is even treated as something romantic. This can be liberating, but also devastating.

From my experience, I know that the artistic community can be very judgmental. For centuries, white men have made up the majority of “recognized” creators. Only later did women, minorities, and people of color begin to be recognized. And yet, I still heard comments like, "Jane Austen? Just some white ass romance novelist, nothing special." Paradox? Because these same people could name at least two of her works. So maybe she was "special" after all.

In my creative writing studies, I learned quickly: anything that happens to you can become a text. However, it's easiest to write about difficult things because they're "more powerful." Back then, I felt like I didn't want to change my life just because I didn't have enough material. If something was going wrong, I wrote down every detail, knowing it would “come in handy.”

When my mother kicked me out, I was a mess, but… I immediately thought about the texts that would emerge from it. Back then, I wrote quickly, chaotically, often without inspiration, in notes on my phone, moments before a deadline. All the gloomy thoughts enclosed in texts turned out to be a literary swamp. Irony, simplicity, intertextual jokes – nothing I was proud of. Despite this, I received positive reviews. Until I was asked to write a short novella.

I was already in therapy then. I felt like things were getting better, that my life was finally stabilizing. And that terrified me, because how can you write when things are going well? "Look how great I am"? Who would be interested in that?

I decided then to describe my move, my adaptation process, to return to my childhood and confront my fear of death. I was afraid I was digging into trauma, even though I was in a good place. But it turned out that this novella absorbed me. I wrote on trams, buses, anywhere but at home. Each chapter emerged from me like a ready-made bolt of lightning. It was my saddest piece – yet, paradoxically, it was written at a moment of happiness.

And that was the first time I felt that I was no longer behind the narrator. That my experiences no longer defined me as a person. That I could write about the past and yet live in the present.

Why should Sylvia Plath be read only in moments of deepest crisis? Why was the ironic reworking of a quote from The Bell Jar "too strong" for others? Why should Kafka be just a worm, not a man with a face?

It took me 20 years to understand: an artist doesn't have to be like their art. An artist doesn't have to experience what they write about. Sometimes art is simply therapy, a return to the past to process it.

For years, I felt I had to look and act like an "artist." Listen to certain music, be interested in niche things, and fit a certain vision. But being an artist doesn't preclude being simply a woman who bakes cakes and listens to pop.

My niches may be someone else's mainstream but the fact that they are mine makes them unique.

And I know that one day I can sit on my balcony, play a pop song, eat ice cream, and write the most gut wrenching story ever. And that I can do it without suffering. Because I choose to be an artist—not art itself.

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If you follow literary-related social media, you've probably noticed that for several years now, there's been a renaissance of fascination and fixation with authors with distinctive, often depressing, life stories. We fell in love with those who, under the guise of narrators, described their own dilemmas and breakdowns – that is, simply people.

As someone who loves Tumblr and post-Tumblr poetry (yes, I claim the rights to this term and slap a big copyright mark on it), I've noticed that authors on this platform are particularly fond of a few figures:

• Emily Dickinson – 6.5k followers of the hashtag on Tumblr

• Fyodor Dostoyevsky – 7.7k

• Albert Camus – 8.9k

• Franz Kafka – 17k

• Sylvia Plath – 28k

• Virginia Woolf – record holder: 479k

Each hashtag collects not only quotes but also texts inspired by the authors and entire aesthetics surrounding them. It's this last aspect that I observe with the greatest fascination. I admit, I used to use such hashtags myself – but under my own texts, which Plath or Woolf left a huge mark on.

There are many reasons to use the names of outstanding (and often tragic) authors. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that enclosing them in hashtags has become a common phenomenon.

This fascination is hardly surprising. The artistry, style, and uniqueness of each one are captivating. But equally important is the ability to identify with them on a spiritual level. The images of these writers trigger a game of associations: any worm? – Kafka. Figs? – Plath. Ophelia's painting? – Woolf. Coffee? – Camus. (You know that Camus never said his famous line: "Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee?").

But why are we so eager to aestheticize their lives? Why does Kafkacore exist, why Plath is lumped in with the hashtags #KateMoss or #LanaDelRey? We live in a world where everything has to fit into a trend and fit into social media.

Seeking beauty is an incredibly important value that makes life easier, but there are phenomena whose "beauty" lies in their ugliness. In his text on beauty, Wallis distinguishes three distinct terms: aesthetic, beautiful, and ugly. However, what isn't beautiful doesn't automatically mean it's ugly. Aesthetics is a far cry from how it's perceived in the world of social media. Aesthetics relies on harmony, balance, and proportion, and also on emotions and the author's intention. Aesthetics isn't even a cousin of beauty. Therefore, what is ugly can be aesthetic. A good example is the human body, illness, or old age depicted in art – they aren't canons of beauty, but due to their emotional charge, they constitute aesthetic ugliness (aesthetic in Wallis's sense, of course).

It is in this sense that all these authors – Plath, Woolf, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Camus, Dickinson – are aesthetic. They are more than trends and inspirations for styles like dark academia. Their lives are more than just mental illness.

And believe me, you don't have to be sick or addicted to write well. My best writing (at least according to my professors) was written in an ordinary home, under the care of a therapist, with my boyfriend and friends by my side.

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Apps like Tinder now allow users to express their preferences for a potential partner and what they're actually looking for on the app. When I started Tinder with my friends on a trip to the lake, I felt absolutely awful about myself. When I had the option of looking for: a long-term relationship, something casual, friends, I don't know, I chose I don't know. Not because I didn't want a relationship, but what can you expect from Tinder, which has such a terrible reputation?

From my own experience, I mostly met people looking for casual relationships or friends with benefits. Many men offered only sex as a "first date," which made me gag. It was then that I first encountered the term situationship and wondered what it was. It's humiliating to look up a term and see the first result from a youth dictionary. For the uninitiated, a situationship is when you are in a relationship with someone you like, but you are not officially together. It's a bit like an open relationship; you're not exclusive, you can have sex, sure, but there's no strings attached. As someone who loves romance and tries to find love everywhere, how the hell is there no strings attached when sex is the most intimate moment of trust with another person? Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but ever since I first heard about situationship, I've noticed a flood of stories about such relationships, most of them from girls aged 16-21. I thought, "Why would you bother with something like this if the relationship means nothing to him and the only thing it can do is make you feel uneasy and give you trouble with attachment and trust?" When we search for "situationship," we immediately see a similar search term, "how to get out of it?" Well, it's best to do it quickly before the manipulation and toxicity escalate.

Without a doubt, situationship is hell for romantics and a plague of the 21st century, along with one-night stands and friends with benefits. We are increasingly saturated and tainted by ubiquitous pornography, which manifests itself either in its traditional form or through portals like OnlyFans and the normalization of so-called "soft" on Instagram. Sex is an everyday occurrence, and sexuality in art is still taboo for many, yet art always addresses this topic consciously. It's ironic that the people who complain about sexual references in music are the ones who get upset when you type the letter "p" into their search engine and sit with their friends on Discord servers where all the photos of specific OnlyFans girls are leaked.

Hookup culture is a problem closely linked to the normalization of situational relationships and the promotion of sex as a central value in partnerships. Sex is a pleasurable experience, and orgasm itself activates hormones such as endorphins and dopamine. However, the question is, is it worth abandoning the search for a stable or monogamous relationship solely for the sake of meeting a stranger? Hookup culture promotes exclusively sexual relationships, rejecting any emotional involvement. It's leniency toward infidelity and a convenient "get out of jail free" card, like a Monopoly game.

“Honey, it's nothing serious, it's just sex.” For many women, it's downright sexy. A full 79% of women in a Durex study admitted to being afraid of having sex with a new partner because it's important to them and requires a lot of trust from both parties. For many people, hookup culture is liberating and completely normal. I don't intend to judge this in this article, but I do want to show the other side of the coin. In 2024, the Institute for Family Studies published an article based on research from the American Psychological Association, showing that respondents who gave in to the need for a fleeting relationship or hookup often experienced regret, low self-esteem, anxiety disorders, or even depression. Furthermore, the APA indicated that in 2023, 70% of sexually active people aged 12-21 admitted to having casual sex. Concerns about the inability to build healthy relationships and difficulties with attachment to just one person are becoming increasingly common.

Btw, if you are interested in this topic I suggest reading „Everything I know about love” by Dolly Alderton!

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Anna Wintour is like Madonna in the fashion world, an undeniable icon and a figure who forever changed her industry. The queen of the fashion world whose smile was only seen in public once. For 13 years, she gained experience as a journalist at Viva, Harper's Bazaar, and New York, eventually joining Vogue. In 1985, after just two years, she took over as Chief Editor of British Vogue. She is responsible for revolutionizing Vogue covers. Before 1988, Grace Mirabella was the editor, following the standard for magazine cover photoshoots. During her tenure, the focus was on formulaic styling, with models' faces heavily zoomed in, almost resembling makeup artist's face charts. Each issue was similar, and any artistry was imperfect. It was Wintour who pioneered modeling sessions outside the studio. The models left the ateliers and the magazine's goal was to interest readers first with the cover and then with the content. For comparison:

1975 covers from the Vogue Archives, edited by Grace Mirabella

the first covers under Anna Wintour's tenure

Wintour's fame is hard-won and assured, thanks to her years of experience as both a journalist and a fashion enthusiast. Her character is so iconic that the film The Devil Wears Prada is based on the workings of the Vogue editorial office. In an interview with Anna, Meryl Streep confirms the editor's inspiration for the film. The film itself is a critique of contemporary standards of beauty and condemns the constantly evolving canons that slowly tend to wear down young women.

Wintour's prestige is palpable. For years, she hosted the most popular fashion gala in the world, and walking on its carpet was the greatest honor - the Met Gala. Anna was responsible for choosing the theme each year and constantly consulted on the changing lineup of attendees. In numerous interviews and backstage footage, Wintour can be heard openly discussing her dislikes of certain individuals or her strong relationships. Even being seated at a table near Wintour was considered the ultimate celebrity honor. Wintour received a lot of flak for the 2021 Met Gala, due to the invitation of then-popular influencers and tik tokers like the D'Amelio sisters, Addison Rae, and Emma Chamberlain. The biggest controversy came at Vogue headquarters only after Wintour left.

Just a month after Anna left, a controversial campaign by the fashion brand Guess appeared on one of the magazine's front pages. This is the first campaign in Vogue to use an image of a model generated by artificial intelligence. The entire "shoot" is labeled as generated by AI under the supervision of one of the designers. However, a lot of hate against Vogue has poured out in the media, and speculation has arisen that the campaign featuring the AI model ultimately led to Wintour's departure as editor-in-chief. Wintour, however, remains silent on the matter, citing the need to focus on her foundation and global issues related to the magazine as the official reason for her decision. However, as a longtime Vogue fan and reader, I can believe that Anna Wintour, upon being given the ultimatum to include this ad in her magazine, said, "Fuck it." The media has been buzzing about the campaign for two weeks, sparing no words about AI models. CNN and the BBC have issued their passive-aggressive comments.

To be honest, as an opponent of artificial intelligence, I understand the readers' outrage. I was so angry myself that I chose Vanity Fair over Vogue this month. Vogue has always been a bastion of art and fashion, attention to detail, and beauty. Setting or subverting beauty standards and pursuing progressive thinking, all of this crumbles at the sight of an artificially generated, beautiful model—a blonde with flawless skin, full lips, and an hourglass figure. This is an absolute violation of years of work on diversity in the beauty and fashion industry. I wonder if the sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, due out in 2026, will mention the turbulent campaign, and whether Miranda Priestly, upon seeing an AI model, will also say, "That's all."

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„I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like. fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a brilliant professor and another was amazing editor. (…) I saw myself sitting in the crotch of the fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each of every one of them, but choosing meant losing all the rest.” Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

When I read "The Bell Jar," at a probably too young age, I realized it was a quote that would haunt me as much as Fleetwood Mac's 1997 performance. The description of the fig tree is the most characteristic of all of Plath's quotes. But what do these sweet figs hold?

The answer is parallel – a word usually associated with similarity, although its Greek root simply means “parallel.” Plath, writing her novel, disguises herself as Esther. As a 31-year-old woman, she ponders the question of choosing her own fate. We know, however, that her life ended just a month after the book's official publication. This “what if” of possible lives is precisely a parallel – parallel, non-intersecting biographies that could happen but will never have a common beginning or end.

For some time, I observed a trend in the media related to the aforementioned Plath quote, where internet users shared their dream, potential life stories. I saw hundreds of versions of the same fig tree image, with different roles assigned to each fig. Sometimes, a fig that was labeled "mother" for one person was labeled "businesswoman" for another. I wondered what my fig tree would be like, and then I understood the connection between all these interpretations. For many people, the fig tree was a wishful thinking about who they would be if money weren't an issue. Many choices were based on pure passion and the desire of the heart. And I think that's what life is all about: at least trying to get closer to one of these figs, even if we can't have them all at once. At the same time Plath speaks up about fear of missing out. The fact choosing one meant losing all her other lifes, showing how unable it is to pick one fig for yourself is so popular nowadays and it’s shorted to FOMO.

My choices weren't that spectacular—especially if you know me personally—but the whole trend reminded me of something that had stayed with me for years. Something I felt not only when reading Plath but also in my daily life.

I've always been curious about strangers. I could stare at passersby for hours, imagining what it would be like to become someone completely different. It wasn't that I wanted to change myself—I wanted to live a different life. I believed that the fact that we only get one life per person was deeply unfair and limiting. I wanted to explore alternative versions of myself: ones who would have chosen a different path, hesitated, thrown themselves into a cliff, or made logical decisions instead of emotional ones. I wondered if I could survive without certain experiences. Would I like myself if I didn't carry certain burdens from my past? I'd find out if I reincarnated.

I still envy people's lives so much, and each one is fascinating to me. The only solution to such needs? Reading, and with considerable commitment.

Returning to the question: is Plath's metaphor just a passing social media trend? In my opinion, no. The fig tree is more than a hashtag under an inspiring photo. It's a symbol—universal and disturbingly true. It's a myth that requires maturity to strike the right emotional chord. The fig tree theory is a literary fixation. It's a shameless fantasy about life and how much one can desire from it. It's both hunger and the sin of gluttony. It's the sticky, scorching fig juice on the fingers of each of us who suddenly feels the consequences of our decisions. It's sitting astride a tree and gazing into the sun. Everyone used to do this as a child in the orchards behind our grandparents', parents', or aunts' houses. Now, hungry, we sit on the branches and, under the sun, we must choose which future we are ripe for.

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