Some Words For Your Confused Days

As humans we’re amazing at one very specific thing, convincing ourselves that we are the only ones in the world going through any very specific thing. The experience doesn’t matter — it can be full on heartbreak or giddy blissful joy — we’ll exist in a vacuum all the same. It’s comfortable there, we get to process, enjoy, or suffer through those feelings without having to contend with others’ opinions on them.

But in certain situations I do think it’s comforting to have someone else to relate to. It’s nice to know that you’re not the only one who is finding their twenties to be especially hard, who is navigating almost being 30 (hey hi hello), or who is enjoying their work deeply, their love deeply, the list could go on.

On your most confused days, I think the best thing you can do is find someone else you can relate to. You don’t have to look far, I’ve found so many people on TikTok who with text overlayed in a video have signaled themselves to be bookworms, fellow grievers, or intimately processing the hard parts of life.

I don’t think you’ll find complete answers to your confusion in someone else’s story (that’d be a tall ask), but I do think you can find the beginning of a thought or the end of a sentence in someone else’s words. People can hold up a mirror for you to look at that you may not be able to hold for yourself.

I am a stubborn, proudly self-sufficient human, have been since I was 10 years old, but it’s a bad habit I’m trying to break. I don’t find joy (yet) in asking for help, but I do find instant comfort. I don’t seek giving up control, but I can’t ignore how doing so allows others to step in and show me their roles in my life. I love doing things alone, but I wonder how much that’s because I’ve never truly been good company to sit with.

I don’t have answers to your confusion, but I have answers to how you can process it better — with a therapist, with a friend, on a walk, in the shower, at the gym, by people watching, by asking someone you love how they see you, by making dinner and seeing how you take someone else’s taste-tasting feedback. Don’t silo and maybe your confusion will stop feeling like a burden and start feeling like another ebb of this human experience thing.

I’m right there with you.