Life, Popular

Why We’re Here…

14 April

It’s 4:28 on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon and I’m sitting in La Teverna Del Coure, a small quintessentially el Born cafe, sipping a (not-frozen) pina colada, my first taste of alcohol since leaving London almost three weeks ago, listening to Dream State by Kamasi Washington and Andre 3000, watching people pass and contemplating life. Booze, travel, melancholy music, and the quiet panic caused by the reflection on one’s life. All the token earmarks of an existential breakdown right?

So… why are we here? A loaded question that requires an even more loaded answer.

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Like many other #OGMillennials, who also happen to be of quintessentially American roots and upbringing, I suffer from severe bouts of depression, imposter syndrome, anxiety, feelings of inevitable failure, and the overwhelming sense of impending doom, rooted in childhood and early-twenties trauma, financial instability, single-motherhood and the audacity of having goals and aspirations with absolutely no clue as to how to achieve them.

We’re the generation told we could do and be anything, as long as we went to school, got a good job, and worked hard. That was the proven, and only, formula for success. And we foolishly believed it, not knowing we’d be the first generation to grow up on Al Gore’s and Beyonce’s internet, live through several economic recessions, experience the denial and devastating effects of climate change, while also witnessing the first black man be elected president and woman elected vice-president.

We somehow survived both a global pandemic and a Trump presidency, which culminated in the first-ever insurrection on the U.S. Capital (who had those on their life bingo card?). We’ve witnessed incredibly heartbreaking deaths in real-time at the hands of terrorists, both foreign and domestic, mass shooters, and those sworn to protect us, all of which led to historic protests and demands, often unanswered, for societal and judicial change. We’ve been a part of historical rights being both granted and taken away, as women, have lost autonomy over our bodies, and due to ever-rising inflation and the cost of just surviving, let alone living, most of us will likely never own our one homes and are putting off having children indefinitely, if at all.

"We’re the generation told we could do and be anything, as long as we went to school, got a good job, and worked hard. That was the proven, and only, formula for success. And we foolishly believed it..."

So that’s a general, oversimplified story of how we got here. But why am I here, physically in Barcelona, where it’s warm, sunny, teeming with the vibrancy of life, joy, and a sense of promise for something greater? Quite simply, I’m trying to undo the damage of the last 20-30 years of my personal learned existence. Don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t all been bad, quite far from it. But there is still severe damage that has to be healed.

More on that later.

For now, I hope you’ll join me on what I’m referring to as my third-life (think mid/quarter) crisis. I refer to this as such because I have been experiencing the same feelings, traumas, and obstacles for the better part of the last two decades. So with this being my third-life crisis, (in my mind, I’m clearly living until at least 120) the primary goal of this literal and metaphorical journey is to eliminate the debt I’ve accumulated over the better part of two decades, due to single motherhood and my general financial ignorance, and solve my financial insolvency, in hopes that along the way I’ll also be able to heal some of the traumas and obstacles that have negatively impacted me along the way. That’s it… the long and short of why we’re here, both literally and figuratively.

It’s now 6:02 PM and time to cook dinner and build the website that this post and those following will eventually live on. I’ve spent the majority of the day out and about in an effort to knock out some work and avoid the depressing void that is my dark, cramped and shared AirBnB. So, in order to NOT spend any more money for the day, I’m reminded of the famous words of ALL of our parents: We got food at home.

And the soundtrack for the walk “home”? Learning by Jordan Rakei.