"I tell you this not as aimless revelation but because I want you to know, as you read me, precisely who I am and where I am and what is on my mind. I want you to understand exactly what you are getting: you are getting a woman who, for some time now, has felt radically separated from most of the ideas that seem to interest people. You are getting a woman who somewhere along the line misplaced whatever slight faith she had in the social contract, in the meliorative principle, in the whole grand pattern of human endeavor. " - Joan Didion. Shocker. Presumably one would be expecting a type of narrative working as a storyboard of the past year, and I suppose, in a sense, that's what one shall receive. One may also be not at all concerned about my general being, but one is also reading this, wondering why I'm referring to them as "one" and not "you," acting like they didn't click on this link and hope for something interesting, extraordinary, or insightful. To write about the past year as if I have a chip on my shoulder likens my thinking to how wine culture rich women in their late 20's feels to me. I'm too good to experience anything less than what I'm experiencing now. On the contrary, I've never attempted to purposely disregard my past experiences, because Cheyenne at 13 is much like Cheyenne at 23: simply doing her best with what she knows.
I naively stumbled my way into 22, prematurely dusting it with bits of magic and what now seems nothing short of unrealistic hopefulness. My intent was for 22 to manifest physically into my "golden year," and while I believe what you put in the universe will come back to you, I hadn't known what to put into the universe until a month and a half prior to my aforementioned "golden year," ending. Even so, there was nothing I willingly "put into the universe," I developed the knowledge that what I wanted to be done needed to be done by my own accord, immediately. If I wanted it done, it needed to be done. If I wanted to do something, I needed to do it. Whether that's my fear of death standing at my front door or my newfound understanding of where my experiences, and eventually my art, comes from, is for you, as the reader, to decide.
In the past year, I've become increasingly more okay with who I am as a person. My body, for starters, which is something I've struggled with for years. More importantly, my mind. I understand that in order to thrive in my generation, you need to have a heavily side swinging opinion on the issues that are plaguing our world as we know it. To succeed in anything, you have to have a firm belief in something. In anything. In most things. You've got to have the knowledge, the power, and the determination to make a difference with what it is you believe. You have to have your argument ready. While that's still important, I've learned to not let myself get down about it anymore. I'm the peace maker. It's in my blood. I don't intend to not agree purposefully, and I don't intend to agree with you just because you're someone I hold close to my heart. The only thing I have a strong opinion on is this: if it's not hurting me, hurting others, or putting any degree of well being at risk, it's not my business to interfere. It's not my space to stick my nose in. You believe what you want to believe, and that's okay with me.
"Don't do something for someone who wouldn't do the same for you," was a piece of advice I gave my sister years ago, and that became a hard pill for me to swallow for myself. Admittedly, these areas in my life had to burn before I felt the need to build them again. Much of my time spent up to this point was designated to touching all the bases, making sure everyone was taken care of, making sure everyone else was accommodated for, not stepping on people's toes in the name of avoiding conflict, and eventually, after all of this, I realized the permanent hold I had on my tongue. While I still may not be one to speak out for the sake of speaking out, I understand all relationships require communication and for so long, that was a trait I left out of conversation if it held a negative connotation. The power to understand what needs to be said, and say it, while standing your ground, has become one of the most powerful feelings I've ever felt. To not let something bother me. To let go of it. For weeks on end, I kept saying "I'm going to end all of my friendships and start fresh," and while that seemed like a high inducing attempt at ANY sense of control, I recognized that behavior as something that needed to be further expanded. I took a step back and assessed what friendship meant to me, the level I continued to be in my friends lives, and at what degree I was in their lives, and had to come to terms if they'd do the same for me or not. Don't do something for someone who wouldn't do the same for you. Just because they did something good for you once, doesn't mean you flip the candle over and light the other end. Eventually you'll have nothing left to burn and only remnants of what was.
Similarly to much of my artistic purpose, all of these processes came to fruition naturally. I've always had an artistic brain, above anything else. Even when I'm not visibly creating in front of you, I'm conceptualizing what I see in my head to put on paper. To create naturally, and not create solely to say I created something, has been one of the biggest hurdles I have had to jump. I'm coming to terms with accepting that what I create best comes from experience outside of this world of normalcy I reside in. I've found my best writing outside the confines of my own brain, thinking as others, thinking in past tense, thinking "if I wrote a book about this, how would I want it to sound?" My most fulfilling pieces, the ones that lift my chest to the sun, have poured out of my cold hotel room to the snow drifted streets of New York City. The sheets were cold and white, my only sense of home was the blanket I made for myself, and one for my sister, when I was in high school. I listened softly as my friends fell asleep on the bed next to me, while the rest of the world was asleep, but the streets were still bustling. My nose was cold. My hair was in braids. The heat was on, but not providing anything except noise. From what felt like the top of the world, I continued to write words in phrases I didn't even consider my brain able to structure. I've always been a visual person. It's the knack of putting those visuals into words that is my next challenge.
To be going into 23 with more of an idea of myself than I've ever had before is an oddly familiar feeling of empowering. I've given up on what feels like everything else except myself, unfamiliar territory to the girl who has never been particularly fond of herself. All I can confidently say is this: though I'm still going through the motions, and I have yet to have an elongated period of time where I'm happy with no exceptions, I can say I don't think I've ever been happier with where my life is in the current moment. I'm okay with "having to deal" with things I know aren't forever. To have my head high, to be able to smile, and physically go do things alone, to wear things I never would before, and know this is just the beginning is no small victory.