Delegated Labor, Bought Craft

I want to be the type of girl who falls in love without question, without hesitation. It’s all in the moment. Sometimes I find myself chasing different ideas of what was or what could be. This is not in terms of relationships, but in terms of previous versions of myself.

My biggest flaw is my ability to criticize or pause. I love that there is a term for it now. Black cat energy. Black cat energy feels like complacency. I feel so estranged from any lover I have had. The relationships are still there. I just feel so much indifference. I wish that beginning feeling lasted forever. I miss the butterflies you get when you meet someone new and it’s the start of something great. At least I’m not heartbroken or using sex to cope in an unhealthy way. All I do is work out. I worked out too hard this month and lost muscle I had been developing for months. It feels good to be leaner. I’ll get the muscle back.

My mind has been scattered this month, and my emotions have been all over the place. This is mostly perpetual dread over my future and external pressure from my support system. There is also the reality that my beauty is fading. It may not be now, but what once helped me gain access may no longer. I hate how women are placed in society. There is such a focus on beauty and youth, so much so that as women evolve, we can’t help but feel as though our only place now is to be a caregiver. You are either young and fun or old and with children.

The Bay Area is changing so much. I don’t like a lot of people I meet who are my age. Everyone is so boring and traditional, and STEM-focused. I find myself answering weird questions about my tattoos and my lifestyle as a creative. “Well, how will you pay for your retirement?” “Do you ever think about how your tattoos will look when you get married?” “You could always go into UX Design.” They are prompting these solutions as though I have a problem that needs to be solved. People’s opinions get in my head, and I get all this anxiety.

I am in a place of change. Every day I am growing, whether this is taking on a challenging writing assignment or learning about fashion construction. I am not challenged at all in my day job, but I prefer that right now.

I am essentially just growing, learning, and waiting until I can build myself into the person who will be successful. There is this mentality among rich people where the focus is on ownership over employment and delegation of task-oriented labor, especially with middle-income jobs. My career path doesn’t make sense to most wealthy people I talk to. I get so many questions like, “But you could just pay someone to do that?” Craft and creativity are evolving into something seen as something that can be bought. Sometimes I think I should move to New York. At least I’d have Mamdani.