The vacuum cleaner screams like it’s being murdered and I push it harder just to hear it choke.
There’s something holy about the line it leaves on the carpet. That sharp, satisfying stripe. Before. After. Before. After. Like God invented symmetry just to calm girls like me down.
There’s a certain pleasure in the effort I put in, or, if that makes more sense, in pressing the button on the vacuum cleaner, pushing and pulling, and seeing the surface instantly smooth. The result of your effort comes instantly, like magic. It keeps me going. I’m useful. I say, “Hey, look, I just worked on something and now my house is cleaner. I’ve actually done something useful.” Doesn’t this exaggerated pleasure from just a vacuum cleaner seem pathetic? Not to mention the feeling of being perfectly content when I wash the dishes.
Even if I never enjoyed something, the immediate feeling of getting results from it always motivates me. I’m the kind of person who created the culture of “if I can’t be perfect at something right away, I won’t do it.”
I’m drinking coffee.
I have a headache.
When I have a headache, I don’t take aspirin because the time it takes to get results drives me crazy.
Instead, I smoke a cigarette.
It’s faster, more effective, more harmful, and I love it, damn it.
Then I sit on the floor and open Instagram and watch a girl in New York say, “You are not behind in life,” while her apartment have floor-to-ceiling windows and a view of a skyline that looks like a desktop wallpaper.
Behind what?
Behind who?
“Suit up,” Barney says in How I Met Your Mother like confidence is something you can put on with a tie.
But wait, this was not the quote i needed to use in here. We are not talking about confidence in here. Do we?
I guess we are now. Because appearantly the reason why I want the quickest results is the way my ego saying ‘‘hey buddy, just a reminder but you are a piece of shit and still, you couldn’t be perfect at this right away. No offense tho’’ and that’s visible sign of low confidence. To be scared of people thinking that I’m a dumb blonde, because I have tried and failed. Or was too lazy to try harder.
And when I dont even try,
the problem is solved. I have nothing to lose. No people talking, no remorse, no fear of failing, no nothing.
Because you can’t beat someone who isn’t racing.
As for the New Yorker girl, she’s lying. Of course I’m behind. Behind everyone and everything.
Because I can’t accept that I’m not competing, but I stop at the very beginning of the race and think, “There’s still a long way to go, let me rest. I’m already depressed. Don’t come at me!”
But they don’t come at me. If you stand in the middle of people running towards the finish line and face them, of course it feels like they’re attacking you. But nobody cares. Everyone’s finish line is different, and what they’re competing against is time. Or themselves. Whatever.
Don’t be so selfish, you bitch.
In short, yes, I’m behind. But not from the girl who lives in a skyscraper in New York, who gives you life advice every day with her hair in a sleek bun, and who has never suffered in her life. I’m behind myself, behind who I could be, and behind my potential.
And no matter how much I run, it feels like the finish line never gets closer.
That makes me give up.
Because I want that damn smooth line left on the carpet by the vacuum cleaner. I don’t want the fruits of my labor to accumulate over months or even years into an income. And unfortunately, that’s not possible.
Sometimes I think if studying left visible bruises on the wall every time I understood something, I’d be unstoppable. Imagine finishing a chapter and suddenly the ceiling cracks open and sunlight floods in. Or numbers carving themselves into the air like neon signs: “LEVEL UP.”
Instead, everything important happens in secret.
Roots underground.
Muscle under skin.
Thoughts under silence.
And I hate secrets.
Everyone looks like they’re in episode 8 of their growth arc.
I’m still in the pilot.
There’s this line from BoJack Horseman: “Every day it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it every day. That’s the hard part.”
The hard part isn’t the doing.
It’s the every day.
Every day is rude. It doesn’t care about your mood. It doesn’t care that you reorganized your bookshelf by color and vibe and existential crisis.
Every day asks again.
I prefer things that ask once and then reward me immediately.
The vacuum doesn’t need consistency. It just needs a socket.
Nevermind.
The future is arrogant. It demands repetition without flirting back.
By the way, for those wondering, Bojack heard that line. He understood exactly what that wise old man, who had seen and experienced much and Bojack was familiar with the process, meant, and he knew it in every fiber of his being. Perhaps he thought he could succeed at that moment. He digested it. He believed in its truth. He was reborn that day with a desire to change things within himself. But only that day. Then the episode ended. So he reverted back to his old, despicable self. Apparently, Bojack here is me. And I hate every moment of it. I’m sorry.
Love, gülsena.
"Because you can’t beat someone who isn’t racing." got me good