Words are inadequate

o.O

To take just one example, they've told you, over and over, "You're good enough to be anything you want to be." That's a trap. Two traps, even. You can see one of them even if you can't verbalize it yet: you don't know how to find out what you want. The reason you can't find out what you want is the other trap: the unspoken "As long as what you want isn't something we disapprove of."

Fuck them.

You're good enough to do anything you want, you're good enough to make a living doing anything you want, and you're good enough to want anything you want. Full stop.

Learning to want things for yourself is really bloody hard. It's harder when the two most important people in your life are telling you that everything you want for yourself is wrong. You're going to spend the next dozen years just learning that it's okay and even good to want things for yourself, and then at least another ten figuring out what those things are.


Light bulb. I'm not quite there yet. I'd appreciate talking with you some time about how you learned this.

I really admire everyone who's writing these things. Too difficult for me, still. But with each one I read I get a bit closer to figuring it out.