There are many reasons for my self-inflicted ennui. The first is that it’s self-inflicted, I’m doing this to myself, and I don't know how to stop. A part of me thinks that's standard practice for those in my generation and many voyeurs from generations before. They make up assumptions about us, “it’s their phones, they stare at screens all day and it’s not healthy” and my personal favorite “it’s that bloody tick-tack app they’re all watching all the time. But it’s always been more than that. If each snowflake to fall from the sky, in the entire existence of snow itself, is unique;  How can you expect everyone from every moment in time to be the same? From your generation or otherwise? 

I don’t exactly know how to stop being sad constantly but I'm fairly sure it starts with doing what you like in moderation. All the best things in life are consumed in moderation, aren't they? I’ve heard puffer fish is fantastic but eating too much can kill you. Joy in moderation feels like the right baby steps, right? For me it does. So far the moderation method is rocky, I don’t always have the energy to do what I want but that's fine. As long as I know I'm taking those baby steps then I know I'm being good to myself. I can’t blame myself if the chemicals in my brain aren't always aligning with what I want. I can’t open up my head and soak those chemicals up with a sponge. So I let it be. 

Sometimes joy in moderation is eating that overstuffed burrito from that place on your lunch break while listening to Harry Styles is all the joy in the world. And that’s a picture-perfect thing for me.

But on to my reasons for being sad. 

Now, I'm not exactly on a diet I never have been. Fad diets and smoothie trends have never been something that has grasped my attention. I’m privileged to say that I've never felt uncomfortable with the way I look. I’ve never focused on any part of my body and thought “I hate you for looking like that” No. Every part of my body has a function and if it does as it’s supposed to then I can't fault it, can I? 

No, what I mean by my diet is what I put in my mouth, chew and swallow. Those things are not good, and I know they're not good but they taste amazing. What I'm referring to, specifically, is bread. I could eat a truck full of it and still ask for another sandwich. I like to think my inability to hate bread is my bizarre superpower. I can, and have, eaten the crusts off of other people's sandwiches and then move on my own like it’s the main course.

Doesn’t help that I have a gluten intolerance. 

 

My diet, overall, is disgusting. I try to eat well, really I do! But I cannot seem to get my body to agree with what I want. It’s embarrassing that, as a 22-year-old woman, my goal is to eat a salad without crying. If those awful bizarre eaters show from the noughties were still vital entertainment, my friends would’ve pushed me in front of the producers saying “She mouths off to an army of wrestlers but she cries when 

she sees greens on her plate” 

I try in my own way to eat well, like nuts and raisins in a chocolate bar; Ironically enough, I hate chocolate. I’ve tried to eat greens but they have a nasty habit of climbing back up. 

Nothing is more embarrassing than being a picky eater in a generation that lives on discovering new foods. Being friends with people as adventurous in their culinary endeavors sucks, especially when you’re the burden of the group. “What about Hiba, is there something comfortable enough for her to eat? '' My friends are great. They’re the best people I know. But when you’re the one who has to be thought of when picking dinner locations, it’s hard not to feel like an anchor. 

It’s disheartening that I have to study a menu for three weeks before I can go out for dinner with my friends. I spiral at thought of how I have to train myself to handle the smell of a restaurant before I even google its destination and find something interesting enough that my friends don’t watch over you whispering “We can just get Wingstop instead”, and comfortable enough not to claw back up your throat. 

Being an incredibly picky eater makes me sad and embarrassed but not as much as it makes me jealous. I hate watching people around me eat greens and different kinds of meat with ease. Why am I such a picky eater? I ask as I watch my friends down sushi without having to psych themselves up. I have 10 goals for 2022 and five of those are about weaning myself off of “comfort foods” So far, it’s working! I tried mango for the first time and, quite frankly, it was okay. 

So, this one's kind of a catch-22 situation. On the one hand, I feel immense joy and relief that I am finally finished with years of education and academic burnout. After 17 years of waking up at 6 am, finding the will to navigate yourself through a maze of sweaty teens and teachers forever trapped in midlife crises. 

It’s a lot. 

But then the real world comes along, and no one in the history of the world has ever gotten the mysterious “Navigating life for dummies' book. With a degree and the tip of your cap, you are immediately birthed into the bustling adult world. Where no one pats your back for making it on time, and all promise of clarity is thrown off a cliff like a virgin sacrifice. 

You’re not given a job on sight with that degree. And in a world surrounded by influencers and mediocre celebrities, your degree is nothing more than a piece of paper with fancy writing on it. A degree can only take you so far, what can boost that degree (that no one forgets to tell you) is experience. At the very least, a year of it. 12 months of it to be exact. 12 months that you’re only given three months to relax. So how can someone, who’s barely an adult, cram 12 months of experience in the three months they have off? How can someone, who’s in the last stages of childhood be expected to work part-time in the soul-sucking dimension of retail, be expected to trudge home and hunch over a laptop for the few hours they have for sleep? 

Questions, questions I have some, and yet, not the answer to one. 

I’m a 22-year-old graduate who has to come to terms with the fact that the world is not going to think as I do. I will never be thought of as a stellar candidate, I will be thought of as CV number five in a pile of five hundred. Like most in my position, I have to look for unpaid internships while selling my soul to ungrateful customers and a global conglomerate. It’s hard not to feel upset about that. It’s hard not to chastise yourself when the people around you had the key and forgot to open the door for you. But that happens a lot. To everyone around the world. So many people have so many keys but the majority are left outside in the cold, asking to be let in but not knowing that there’s a key. 

I’m upset with myself, though, for not knowing how to calm the child that’s still alive in me. In this limbo state of existence, it’s hard to let the childhood you happily existed in, go. Here’s a word of advice from someone jumping into adulthood, forget the child you were and focus on nurturing the newborn adult you’ve become. Revel in being of legal age to get into a club. Nurture that adult, they have a long life ahead of them and they need you not to be coddling an overgrown child. Or you’ll feel numb. That's the worst possible thing that can drive your sadness away. Numbness that makes you forget that you’re a human being, there are a thousand things you can become, a thousand possibilities that are easily murdered by a sick numbness that can infect your life. 

My generation thrives on the belief that we don’t need to grow up, the world needs to change. But how can you expect the world to change when you refuse to do the same? Change, in and of itself, is inevitable. 

So I pose a question, reader, How can I nurture the adult I am to become while putting a restless child to rest for the final time? 

This sends me into a spiral. As I'm sure you can relate, the “So are you talking to anyone?” question plays a significant role in the torture that is small talk. It’s a daunting question with a million different answers. Logically speaking, it’s a yes or no question. But sometimes logic doesn't always conform to the rules of society, so we replace it with our own form of logic. We replace a standard and sufficient yes or no with “I’m taking a break from all that” and watch for the classic indicators of satisfaction. 

The relationship discussion, for me, is boring. It holds no substance. To me, it's another form of public humiliation of both the unknowing and the poor dunce who decided to slide into their DMS with an ill-timed “hey”. It’s the humiliation of interrogation in the place of a fond meeting that drives my unease and opens the floodgates. 

I’d like to preface that it’s not the actual question that scares me. It’s the realization that I will not be able to hide from the judgemental glances and the confused faces when I inevitably reply with “I don't want to be in a relationship.” I can’t stand the thought of sharing myself with someone else and in turn, being responsible for their romantic feelings. I hate the idea of being touched and touching others. I cringe, secretly when people hug me and that makes me abnormal. Humans thrive on touch. It’s a scientific fact that humans thrive psychologically from physical affection. So what does that say about my psychological state? 

I’ve talked to guys and they were all….interesting. It was mostly for my own form of anthropological study. And from that study, I have come to the conclusion that of the 22 men that matched with me in the first 16 hours of my joining a dating app, only 2 have made a move, and one just wanted a quick shag (which I shut down faster than an elevator door). All in all, a waste of precious time. One date and I left the cinema thinking “As god is my witness, I’m never doing that again”

And in that study I realized, maybe I like being alone. Scratch that, I like being alone. And that blissful loneliness makes me forget my abnormalities in dating. I forget the anxiousness that overcomes me when I'm waiting for some guy who can’t differentiate his thumb from his johnson. 

There are a lot of things in life that will make me sad, sometimes they can be something small (like the live-action Mulan trailer), and other, most often, they can be things that change the course of your life. A person, who you thought was immortal and invincible, dying. I’ve been told before, by the people closest to me, that I'm an intense person. I cut my throat and I'm not scared to be as blunt as I can. 

But is being sad a bad thing? Absolutely not. Being sad, no matter how long, is an unnecessary part of life, like going to the dentist or working in customer service. Being sad is your, I feel, body's way of saying Remember what made you happy. It’s nothing more than a reminder. A painful reminder of the joy in your world and in the world you live in. 

With love, 

Hiba