I just finished watching Matt Spicer’s “Ingrid Goes West” released in 2017. To say I am chilled to the bone is an understatement. Aubrey Plaza’s Ingrid is painfully relatable. Not because I can relate to how far the character goes down the rabbit hole, but because I could feel the pain, loneliness and self-loathing seeping out of her on the screen. Plaza’s depiction of this unstable, grieving, frantic woman was superb. She hit me in all of the awkward places that told me that my survival depended on others accepting me.
As I try to watch a mindless comedy to calm my mind and heart before going to sleep (unsuccessfully), I am wondering if we aren’t all a little bit like Ingrid in this modern age. Maybe not to the degree of battling Borderline Personality Disorder, but in the small still voice that pushes the falsity that we are unworthy of existing as we are?
#onlygooddays
How many of us post only the best moments, with witty hash tags to prove to the rest of the world that we’re living our best lives? How many of us pretend we don’t sit in traffic, take a shit, and pick veggie fibers out of our teeth? How many of us are vulnerable enough to tell the world when we make a misstep in our relationships? Use a word incorrectly? Eat luke-warm grubhub on an evening when depression is weighing us down? According to my mindless scrolling, not nearly enough. Not even a sliver of my feed, anyway.
We’re all frauds to some degree. We rationalize that in posting only positive spins to our otherwise mundane moments, we are truly living a quality life. We want to look at the bright side. We are even chastised or judged by others if we get too real. Like, ‘Whoa man. Don’t be bumming anyone out with your sincerity.’
We want to post our best selves. But it never just ends at the post. What comes after that post? Checking to see how many people liked/commented/reacted to it? Does that somehow legitimize us? No. Does it make that moment of our short life official, if someone has signed off? No. There is no intrinsic value in anyone’s opinion on our realism. I’ll admit I’ve checked. The more raw and vulnerable my post, the more often I check, as much as I cringe to admit it. I cannot pretend I am any better than the next bear.
Lipstick on the Pig
What is it about external validation that feels so significant? Why isn’t the lived experience from our own perspective enough? Why do we feel we need to push a false narrative instead of just admitting our life may feel mundane, or even not-so-great that day? Why do we feel the compulsion to remove ourselves from the beautiful and perfect moments in life to make sure we can frame it in the right aesthetic? Why do we pretend we aren’t living life as it really is, which is sometimes painfully boring? And conversely, when we have a moment that is spectacular and perfect, why do we allow ourselves to be robbed of it, to make sure we are broadcasting it in a way that is palatable to people who truly DO NOT CARE?
I will never forget one sunset in particular that illustrates this absurdity. I was sitting on a Honolulu beach on a mild October evening. A warm breeze could be felt, carrying the smell of the ocean with it. The sky was painted in bright purples, oranges and reds. The sun dazzled as it finally sank over the Pacific. It was absolutely mesmerizing. As I looked around at the hundreds of people sharing that sand with me, I was disheartened to see that every other person was holding their phone in front of their face, reducing that colossal ball of fire into a hashtag on their 4X5 screen. Completely missing the sunset, in order to preserve it for a day that would most likely never come. I was literally the only person without a phone to log it. To this day I can recall how bright and fierce that dying sun was. I hope the moment never leaves me. It was perfect.
Beige is Beautiful Too
Here I sit now, wearing sweats because I feel bloated. I’ve got a bit of a hormone headache, I haven’t hydrated enough today, and my legs have about a week’s worth of hair growth on them. And that, my friends, is just fine with me. Because I am perfect as I am. Whether or not this post gets a like, or any reads for that matter. I invite you to be your mundane, cringey self too. Life can’t always be in Technicolor, so, love yourself now. As you are. Whether or not anyone notices, likes, or cares. Don’t be Ingrid. Love yourself in all of your moments. The bad, the beige, or the spectacular.