A Long, Forced Run to Marathon

Round three of Unprompted Prompts comes from the one and only Isiah Magsino: Vogue contributor, fashion aficionado, and the most recent member of Merrell and I's group chat. Read his thoughts on growing up below :)

*You’ll find that I switch between 1st and 2nd person throughout this piece. It’s how these thoughts ran from my mind to the document. It could be either seen as a damn grammatical mess, or a metaphor for the back and forth conversation of me explaining to others while also coaching myself.*

My breaths are short and I can’t seem to get a hold of them. The peripherals of my sight are blurred and as I look down I pray to god that my legs can keep up. Short, frosty breaths are the only thing I can make sense of while everything else is a struggle for clarity.

Nobody tells you that it’s a whirlwind. Nobody tells you that it’s a long, forced run to Marathon. 

The months following graduation feel like 1,000 knives piercing you over, and over again. After you vacation and celebrate the milestone of completing school, you’re sort of pushed off of the edge of a cliff and into the next chapter of your life. 

Your problems, no matter how sweltering they are in your heart, are but a minuscule occurrence to those speculating. You learn that you live as you were born and how you will die; alone. 

There will be nights that fade into a blurred darkness as tears roll down onto your pillow because the confidence that took so many years to attain feels to be crashing down. And suddenly you realize that Dante’s ninth layer of hell is actually this reality your living.

It’s confusing and harsh. Things come and go. You evolve and are heartbroken. 

Nobody tells you that despite these realities, it’s crucial to understand that the most important moment in your life at this time, is the present one. The one you are living and breathing in. 

This current metamorphosis is both ugly and beautiful and bears a great pain-- but is also one that isn’t entirely unique. 

It’s a constant tug-of-war of where you are and where you want to go. Good days are as frequent as bad. You’ll sink so deep into your bed wondering if it’s worth leaving. 

It is. 

I’ve become confused as to why I’ve forced this melancholy onto myself. In a city drowned in class, it’s easy to attach your identity, and even worse, your worth on to what you do and where your career is.

But once the very mist shrouding you in this despair have retreated to the sky, you realize that you are not the same as the person next to you. Are the thoughts keeping you up at night actually yours, or are they a compilation of everyone else’s voices? 

The structured life you’ve read in books, seen in movies and passed down by your parents isn’t a dead-ended option. Youth is so short and the world is so large that maybe you are seeking stability in vain. Or maybe, the universe is hinting that this isn’t your time for it. 

These questions continue to echo in the chambers of my mind, and I have yet to attain an answer to them: Am I succumbing to what is perceived as ideal? Do I sit to only worry about the next? Are my concerns of an office job-driven out of comparison to my peers?

And finally, with the context of understanding where post-graduate worries come from: 

Am I living for myself, or am I pretending to be? 

This metaphysical questioning isn’t new to me, nor anyone else. But I want them to resurface in the time of post-graduate despair. 

I always say ‘eternal freedom’-- a mantra that has helped me keep happy and free from restrictions, expectations. A mantra that started when I was at a good place in my life. A mantra that has grown into something new and one that needs to be revisited and redeveloped in a time that doesn’t feel easy.