The Velvet Type

Refusing to be a bullet point and wanting more than survival.

I don’t know if I have a place in the world.

It sounds cliché, maybe even obvious, but it’s a troubling worry that consumes me at times.

It starts at the very beginning, when you’re born. You’re taught language, behaviors, morals, and pleasantries. We are molded from the lessons ingrained in us by our family, and then we begin to experience things on our own. We learn new lessons through action, and we’re given a choice in how those lessons shape us moving forward.

Through heartbreak, loss, new relationships, love, and joy, we are constantly morphing into something new. Something utterly unrecognizable from who we were before such an experience took place.

Sometimes the changes happen quietly, slowly, like thieves in the night stealing bits and pieces of your childhood joy. They break your valued possessions, the things you thought made you who you were. They disrupt and alter where you keep things, making you forget they ever existed at all.

And then, one day, you wake up confused. You did everything you were supposed to.

You graduated from high school, you went to college, and you relentlessly powered through to be handed an expensive piece of paper. Maybe you even landed the dream job, the thing you’ve spent the past five years working towards and dreaming about, because that was it. That’s what was supposed to make it all worth it.

But is it? Worth it?

When you wake up each day, follow the same steps: shower, coffee, breakfast, drive to work. Eat lunch at the same cafe because they have at least three things you like, so you rotate between them. You finish your day, go home, to do it all again tomorrow.

You did what you were told to do, you followed the steps laid out for you. But something’s missing, isn’t it?

Maybe you look at your parents; they’ve been doing this longer than you, and when you ask how they manage it, they simplify it down to one answer: ‘You just have to suck it up.’

Is that what life is? Just sucking it up, plowing through the mundane until you eventually knock on death’s door?

Sometimes I think I’m the broken one. Why does ‘sucking it up’ seem so impossible for me? I get bored with repetition, I feel suffocated in routine, I can’t help but think, there has to be more.

There has to be, right? There are thousands of years of history proving we as humans have sucked it up and pushed through life. We made it this far, but at what cost?

Did they ever dream of more? Were they bound by the societal constructs of their time? Forced to endure repeatedly, simply to survive. And yet, that’s the difference between then and now. Today’s societal structures offer the power of convenience, access, and choice. Not everyone’s situation is the same, but we possess freedoms that no generation before us ever truly had.

We challenge the outdated systems, we argue the immorality of past ideals, and we have this freedom that has previously only been dreamed about. While our knowledge expands, convenience becomes accessible, and survival is no longer our sole objective, what are we to do with that?

I am in a position where I can do whatever I want, and this freedom grants me permission to be whoever I choose. I can let past experiences harden me and weigh me down, or I can choose to be more than what society presses me into being.

I can apply to whatever job and cross my fingers, hoping to be chosen. I can move across the country away from family and familiarity, reinvent myself entirely. We all can if we want to, so why don’t we?

What holds us back from following our true desires?

We live in a world where violence, pain, and suffering are projected across every platform. Where the struggles of others are highlighted and often exploited. Where governments aim to control and suppress. And yet, despite all of this, we still hope. We dream of a better future, a world where hate, greed, and envy aren’t the driving forces behind political decisions.

But I’m just one person with a huge heart that leaks and bleeds on everything it touches.

I don’t know what to do with that.

I’m not driven by career domination, financial success, or material rewards. Yes, they’re necessary for survival, but they’re not food for the soul. I watch others flaunt promotions, new cars, and big houses, but I see the larger picture.

On your deathbed, none of that actually matters. Even if you alter the course of the world through revolution or innovation, what happens? You’re written into a history book as a name, a multiple-choice answer for future students to circle on an exam.

People may remember what you did; they can remember your name, your accomplishments, and the systems you changed. But they won’t remember you. They won’t know who you were as a person, what your favorite color was, or how you take your coffee in the morning. They won’t remember how you tear up at the sight of a beautiful sunset because it reminds you of a childhood memory you can’t quite explain.

You can accomplish everything, get the promotions, buy the big house, and drive the nicest car. But what does it all mean in the grand scheme of things?

I don’t think I fit into this world because I don’t want to be remembered for historically significant facts of policies that altered the way we trade apples. I don’t want my life reduced to bullet points deemed important by historians. If I’m remembered at all, I want it to be for the entirety of who I was.

How I eat my food least favorite to most favorite, so I can truly savor my last few bites. The way tears slip out when I laugh too hard or get too overwhelmed. I want to be remembered as a whole entity, not distilled into fragments.

And knowing this, I don’t know where I belong.

I can’t pretend to be something I’m not, I can’t power through or “suck it up.” It’s all surface-level experiences that, at the end of the day, don’t amount to anything of true meaning. What does have meaning, is the depth and inner workings of the human experience. It’s peeling back the layers and asking endlessly ‘why?’ just to understand.

I believe that understanding is what eventually connects us all. My mind, my words, they don’t exist in a surface-level, stereotypical category. I am a being designed to challenge, to create, and to build. But with knowing that, I’m left wondering: where does it leave me?

Maybe I want to change the world, maybe I want to travel through it and experience it fully. Maybe I want to post my thoughts so others feel seen and less alone.

I don’t know if I have a place in the world.

I have so much to give in a place that more often than not, takes without returning. I don’t know the future or what direction I’m headed in, but at least I know my mind and my heart. I know my values, who I’m willing to stand with and against.

Maybe one day, someone will see me and understand. Maybe offer me an experience I can’t refuse. But, until then, all I can do is air out some of the thoughts clouding my mind as a girl in her 20s trying to find her place in this vast, complex yet beautiful world.

Signing off,