Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Keepin it Real

I started reading Amy Poehler's new book, Yes Please, and one of the first things she talks about is how hard writing can be. As usual, Amy Poehler is right. I'm just a newbie small time blogger and I still stared at my computer screen for 20 minutes trying to figure out the best way to start this post. But then the words of Amy came back to me and I realized if she has trouble writing, and she is basically a genius/goddess/eternal role model, then maybe I don't have to feel so bad for having a few writing brain farts. So I figured I'd dive right in and start writing about how hard writing is...not my most inspired idea, but fuck it, I gotta learn somehow. Bare with me.

I feel a little awkward in these beginning posts. Blogs are like the socially acceptable form of talking to yourself in public. I'm writing all these personal thoughts and ideas down, but anyone can see it. It's like putting your own diary up on national television. Either analogy makes me feel sort of crazy. And I'm letting anyone in to see the crazy because I just don't care...that pretty much sums up my 20's so far.

Everyone in their 20's is dealing with some form of crazy. Like Lena Dunham's character in Girls, she has OCD, as well as various other neuroses that are not so obvious (maybe they are). Or Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City, she buys multiple $500 shoes on a writer's salary. I guess that's not crazy, that's just a crock of shit. But really, there's all these shows about the struggles of being in your 20's (it seems to be the new cliche) yet a lot of the shows and movies never really seem to have an accurate portrayal of what it's really like. Obviously it's TV, but where are all the real issues being tackled? Where's the ugly truth? Girls is definitely better than Sex and the City, which was basically just about the struggle to find the right man or husband, because that's every woman's number one priority right? (that was extreme sarcasm, just wanted to make sure that transferred via the written word) Yet both of these shows are just a bunch of white, privileged women, supposedly struggling in their 20's, who still manage to have amazing apartments, jobs, and wardrobes in New York. I'm sorry, but where's the struggle?

After graduating from college I had to move back in with my parents, and have been job searching ever since. I got a couple dead beat jobs, but was still laid off, because they didn't end up having the funds to keep me on. I graduated from a university in 3 years, cum laude, with a major and a minor and I can barely land internships. That endless cycle of not being able to get a job without experience, and yet you can't get any experience because no one will give you a job makes me wanna punch a baby. Oh and that little thing called money always seems to be rearing its ugly head. That's my struggle so far, and there are plenty of other 20-somethings out there who have it way worse. I am privileged enough to have parents who will let me stay with them and are able to support me. It may sound hypocritical of me now to have been judging the characters from those shows because I am also white and privileged, but I refuse to be ignorant of what other people go through. I want to share their stories and experiences as well as my own. The struggle may be real, but I'm gonna at least try to keep it real. And with that horribly embarrassing sentence I'll sign off.

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