an imposter has been making my dreams come true while I make lattes

Since turning 24, the universe, or God, or whatever divine energy or cosmic force you choose believe in, has listened to my thoughts (or read my Substack), and my life has been changing more quickly than I can catch up. My path is going in an unexpected direction that’s fulfilling more than my desires could have meticulously outlined in manifestation journals over the years. I’m at a loss for words to describe how grateful I am to be living this life and to be surrounded by support and love, but I’m constantly confused/uneasy about every opportunity sliding my direction. I can’t help but wonder how impermanent it is and how artificial it may be. The effort to craft a future in the present landscape feels like building a house on sand. I know that, per the parable, building it on rock is the smarter option, but it’s feeling increasingly impossible to find it. How does one build a promising future when the places we look for stability are not providing it? Without a solid foundation, formulating a life and finding how I fit into all of this feels faulty, fleeting, without promises. But it seems as though sand is the only option right now.

With so much rapid change and surrounding turbulence, every day feels like a task of piecing together my past, present and future in an attempt to shape a current self out of repressed, disconnected old selves and unrealistic wanna-be pseudo-selves, all with a flimsy backdrop of impending doom. I’ve never had the attention span to keep a consistent journal, typically dipping into a notebook once every few months to drop vague pieces of insight into my current moment or affirmations to manifest positivity and confidence. This is surprising for someone that totes around the title of "writer” like a reusable shopping bag, I know. There’s always a different project that takes priority over what seems to me like a task in cramping my hand and taking time away to document what I already know (because it’s in my head). Silly. To clear some space in the cluttered filing that has become my brain these days, I’m attempting to share more journal-like short pieces. Here’s the first one.

When the path you’re walking on suddenly becomes so clear you forget who’s been paving it (an imposter has been making my dreams come true while I make lattes)

When I first moved to Seattle with my partner in September of 2022, we had 2 suitcases, our 4 month old kitten, and a specific youthful naivety that combines suburban restlessness with absolute cluelessness. It was possibly one of the worst times to move to Seattle in terms of weather, and as soon as we moved into our 200 sq. ft. studio, the shiny Norman Rockwell American Dream Seattle Summer was shaded by the PNW’s quintissential gray wool blanket, and it remained (at one point paired with a record-breaking ice storm) for about 9 months. In that time, I:

• got 2 barista jobs, quit one of them after a month

• fell off the ladder to our loft and sprained my ankle the day my partner flew to Arizona for the weekend

• learned how to defend myself from the middle-aged men smoking cigarettes next to my apartment building (just cross the street, it takes less mental energy than trying to face them)

• watched every. single. episode. of South Park. (not proud of this one)

• went to multiple events and spoke to no one

• did absolutely no writing (except for grad school applications)

• was rejected from grad school (my one and only plan post-graduation)

• made a few acquaintances, and no friends

Looking back, this time was necessary, albeit painful. No one tells you how potent the confusion and self-doubt is during the early 20’s coming of age phase. I thought Angel and I would have a Just Kids-like adventure of living in a big city with just our dreams and our love helping us survive. I thought we’d immediately meet a ragtag group of artists that would make experimental synth music with me and organize illegal punk shows in warehouses with Angel while I studied literary theory in the warm comfort of academia and growing student loans. With hindsight, I needed to be aimless and lonely to know who I am when I’m aimless and lonely. While community is vital, I’m learning the necessity of occasional isolation to more keenly perceive the ways in which we are searching for validation and adventure in others and not in ourselves.

Last March, I quit the unhealthy barista job I had been working for over a year, and at a karaoke night hosted at the bar that has now come to be my personal version of the safe room in a Resident Evil game, we met a group of people that would quickly become close, encouraging friends for both Angel and I. We started going to shows and community events where we did talk to new people; we both made art at a higher ferosity; we gathered more experiences in new areas of the city. At this point, we had already been devising our plan for Disposable Parts, an arts/culture media outlet for Angel’s videography and my writing.

In September, we released the first edition of our full-size, full-color magazine, featuring art from contributors around the country, and a front/back cover designed by someone in Spain that happened to see one of our posters while visiting Seattle. Divinity and fate extended a hand at us, and we steadfastly took it. I seriously stretched my personal understanding of my own limits while editing the magazine, teaching myself graphic design from YouTube tutorials, writing professional album reviews and whipping out articles in just a couple days. The editing process was a fever dream of early-morning barista shifts at a vegan café where I’d cram to complete my remote nonprofit work in between orders, followed by Sex and the City episode binges as background noise while I stared at Adobe InDesign for at least 3 hours, followed by an event or an outing to compensate for the era of social depravity. Bus. Club. Another club. Another club. No. Sleep.

The magazine has been a surprise hit in the Seattle DIY scene, and the next one is gearing up to be even bigger. I have very suddenly woken up to living in the artist fantasy I was beginning to think had been completely squashed by the pandemic and our increasing social disgust. Yes, there is a community of welcoming, creative people making cool art out there! No, they don’t hate you! They really like you now that you’ve shown the world that you’re not only talented, but also a good person! Who would’ve known!

And yet, as desperately and meticulously as you want your dreams to come true, there’s always that inkling that it’ll never happen, that you’re not cut out for it, that you’ll eventually have to forfeit and accept your mundanity. So as I now find myself among crowds of artistic, talented and stylish people, applying for art director positions at publications, watching my partner onstage filming a band that has a big enough following to go on a European tour, doing photoshoots with our photographer friends, and being interviewed for a radio show by a guy we met at a party because we had the courage to talk to a stranger, I feel a disconnect between my two selves: the anxious, self-doubting shut-in and the friendly, culturally savvy magazine editor/writer. Everything has changed so suddenly after years of yearning to get out of Arizona followed by the inital period of Seattle inaction that my internal self has not caught up with the self that is being perceived. In lieu of the quinceañera I never had, I’m now transitioning from flats to heels, but I still feel unfit to walk around in them confidently.

I’m standing in the middle of a dance floor. I’m swiping my hands in the air, bouncing on the balls of my feet through heavy platforms, swaying my head vigorously the beat as it pulses through my nervous system. And yet, I have the irritating itch on my earlobes telling me I don’t belong there. I try to figure out why I feel like I’m wading in a pool of foreign objects. Is it because I wish I had everyone else’s tattoos, their ability to wear low rise jeans like that rather than like this, their pretty faces and flawless makeup? In the light of my bathroom, my insecurities have expanded past youthful disdain into a more confident, mature acceptance, and the affirmations I recite to my reflection carry a genuine belief in my strengths and capabilities. But out in the world, surrounded by other people that are also attractive, stylish, friendly and creative, I wonder if everyone else feels as though I don’t belong as much as I do. I’ve crafted this life for myself out of dedication, hard work and timing, but imposter syndrome is drawing a sheer curtain in front of it all. I can’t possibly be the person that these people are applauding and welcoming into their community! Have you seen them? Have you seen me?

I think I’ve unfortunately boiled most of these emotions down to upbringing (I’m really beginning to wonder what doesn’t trace back to upbringing). My childhood was in no way devoid of support for my creativity. My parents are both musicians and never, as a child, discouraged my artistic interests and goals. However, as I grew up and watched them unable to pursue their creative passions as they tirelessly worked to support our family, observed how much members of my community struggled to make ends meet, and witnessed the expansion of political and economic division both in a local and wider context, I began to realize how much goes into establishing a stable and secure life. And, for many, art is not usually a part of it. It’s a passing fling, a piece of who you once were before responsibilities took precedent over passion, an occasional hobby that you pick up when you’re not being weighed down by obligation.

Growing up in a blue-collar, lower-middle class community, jobs like “creative director” or “art director” or “freelance writer” don’t even belong to your lexicon. My high school’s art program was constantly on the verge of losing funding, and I had no idea any of these paths were even an option. I’m learning that artistic jobs usually take a period of working for free to build a portfolio and prove yourself, and even when you eventually do prove yourself, your chances of getting paid well right off the bat are slim. Some people have the ability to dedicate all their time into this period of artistic development, but when money is an issue and has always been an issue, often the best option is to go to school for a job that will get you a solid income as soon as possible. I think that’s why creative careers aren’t usually advertised to underfunded public school students like myself. Instead you go into a trade job or an in-state school for a few years and come out of it with a guaranteed source of income — you become a nurse, you become an engineer, you become a dental assistant.

The lower-middle class prophecy laid out for me when I registered for a state college my senior year of high school was teaching, but sitting in a classroom listening to lectures about common core curriculum and how to teach To Kill A Mockingbird mere months before the world shut down and I witnessed the growing fragility of American schooling, I knew I couldn’t go through with it. I broke the prophecy and gave up my full-ride scholarship to become a writer instead, to pursue success and security in my own right (props to Angel for this one, as his involvement with the DIY scene in Tucson taught me that people can indeed establish creative community out of nothing). Perhaps the lower-middle class deities are upset with me for diverting from my rightful path and giving up a resource that many students would have whole-heartedly taken advantage of, and that’s why I’m cursed to doubt my choices for the rest of my days. I’m a stranger from a strange land trying to infiltrate a world of artists and stylists and art directors and music producers. Maybe I’m putting people with a different background than me on a pedestal. Maybe I’m sabotaging myself to maintain humility.

Through the publication of our magazine and suddenly being thrust into a community of artstic people, I’m realizing I was always supposed to be an artist of some kind. This artistic person has always been idly waiting within me, but my reckoning with adult responsibilities at a young age and my pessimistic understanding of what it takes to survive in this world that, despite misconceptions, does not want poor people to make it, locked the imaginative girl away. I’m now realizing that this was the life I was always supposed to live—I just didn’t have the privilege of imagining it would happen. I’m trying to remember the shiny-eyed child that sewed clothing for her toys, made jewelry while watching the Powerpuff Girls, practiced songs from The Muppets on the piano and wrote detective stories with her Barbies. I’m trying to remember the pre-teen that sang in the shower and imagined herself performing on Broadway (I had a very strong Glee phase) and the young teen that planned on forming an all-feminine pop punk band with the new friends she’d make at her new school.

I didn’t end up singing on Broadway, and dropped out of drama after a semester. It took a lot longer to make new friends at that new school than I anticipated, and no one wanted to start a band with me. I want to go back and tell that girl not to let the disappointment envelop her, to keep being unapologetic and mindful of her creativity. I want to tell her that, by folding into herself, she’ll still be battling with that doubt 10 years later. I want to tell her that one day she’ll make a magazine in a big city and will collaborate with insanely talented artists. Maybe she’d think I’m crazy for doubting myself, with everything I’ve done. I often feel that I need my younger self as much as my younger self needs me.

At a poetry reading for my nonprofit job, one of the readers said that “we share humanity when we are vulnerable enough to share a piece of ourselves.” I’ve dedicated hours of my life and my humanity to making a magazine that celebrates not only my own art, but the artistic energy and fervor surrounding me. This project might as well be a chunk of my own flesh, carved out of my stomach and laid out on a table for the viewing pleasure of the curious and the creative, and it’s even more significant because that piece of myself was created in collaboration with pieces of other people. Unattached to me, this project is a breathtaking collection of expression and passion from people also attempting to build houses on sand. Attached to me, it is helping me fit into the form I’ve always wanted to fit into, no matter how much my doubt fights tooth and nail to deny it from me. It doesn’t have to be attached to me, that wasn’t the point, but either way, it’s a glimpse of rock, a possibility of foundation for people also expressing themselves and shaping identity in a flimsy, isolated, unnerving environment. It’s an amalgamation of collective emotion, passion, vulnerability, humanity, and I’ll find my way through it.