The grunge and mess was almost inviting. The nostalgia and instant feeling of disgust carried with it a whiff of growth and independence. There, I found inspiration in the novelty of coming into one’s own. I expected a college boy’s dorm room to be just as grimy as a laptop keyboard after finals week; scattered with remnants of Pop-Tarts, coffee, and hopefully the celebratory crumbs of off-campus food bought by an upperclassman. That room personified the period of adolescent purgatory, where flaws are expected. A time when guardians make the pilgrimage for “Parent’s Weekend,” and pretend they aren’t completely appalled by the Brita Pitcher still waiting for a filter replacement. There is an extreme beauty in the limbo of developing independence, the kind of charm that deserves to be leaned into. Clench onto the Dove Men+Care 2-in-1 Shampoo and Body Wash, keep a jar of unacknowledged pickles in your refrigerator, realize that you are still full of promise. Within developing independence there lies an unabashed belief that you are the coolest that you have ever been, and an inner hope that life can only get better. The willingness to wear a “Class of 2022” t-shirt to class and then, with that same enthusiasm, wear a Marist College lanyard around your neck as a righteous gemstone. The nonchalance in adolescents to wash your face and body with the same chemical liquid. In this developing state of being, people are sponges, willing to try out faces in the hope of becoming their true self. That self that has been carried by the stork waiting for its chance to land in the “real world.” Inside this ecosystem of evolving development, all I could feel was jealousy. I felt robbed of a level of grimy development that was expected from the men in my life. The ability to grow at a pace where crumbs collected under a duvet cover wasn’t a luxury awarded to the college girl. While I exerted extra effort into unsticking my sneakers from the linoleum, I realized that my push into independence started the moment I could conceptualize my own gender. There was an early-forced maturity, where I felt I must learn that femininity comes lined with boundaries, expectations and standards. The Stork pushed me to understand my own existence, because, if I didn’t, I would be a step behind.
While I watched my brothers have the length to grow into their selfhood, I felt pressured into a narrowed-lens existence. Inside that mold of man-made, socially-constructed identity, I thought I would find acceptance. Acceptance not just from the world, but an acceptance for myself. I felt I had to learn to live within the lines of a system, shrinking myself to fit inside the standard. Not too loud,not too messy, not too out of control. My laundry would never have the audacity to overflow, my flashing Brita Pitcher light would be as alarming as a smoke alarm, and my fridge would be an inner reflection of myself: stocked with acceptable attributes. But, what if I chose not to? What if the bold ability to exist without apologies could be found inside a pickle jar, strung up with an LED light strip, or dove into with an overflowing laundry bin. What if my Nike Air Max Kicks needed to get a little sticky?
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