Toss Me Right In

being soft in 2026

Cynicism: a pedaled vehicle, a vampiric tomb, a dusty pedagogy, a smooth silver blade slicing through the the laser green glow of the Matrix. I’ll admit that I was 17 years old when I learned what this word actually meant. It seemed like one that was for adults or existed in a galaxy far far away, one that would never apply to whatever I was doing. Just looking at the letters all bunched together like that makes me feel uneasy, like I’m walking through powdered sugar in flip flops.

I was reading The Catcher in the Rye for English class and filling out some packet of questions all about how Holden Caulfield was a certified cynic. And for the first time in my life I had to reconcile with the fact that this was a real way to be, to believe in the worst in people and that things weren’t worth doing. Here was this 16-year old boy acting like a full on adult, a fountain of teen angst and rebellion shaking his fist at the world like a Boomer.

But what about me and my teen angst, my 6am charcoal-lined eyes and my spoken-word recitation of “505” by the Arctic Monkeys during the poetry unit? My secret Instagram where I posted my moody photography and troubled writing, and my Docs on the morning dewdrops and my abiding desire to be understood? I didn’t believe people were inherently bad; in fact everyone in my universe got the benefit of the doubt. Anything could happen and I could make it happen. Anyone could care for me the exact way I envisioned. My teen angst bullshit didn’t have a body count, but rather it served as armor for an otherwise incredibly hopeful girl living in a dream-state.

Somewhere along the way, the gilded plates melded into my own epidermis. I got hurt too many times, let down too many times. People left, I failed, I disappointed people, the world remained messed up. What I wanted never aligned with the structures set ahead of me to take me on a journey of success. I clawed for people and things to keep me afloat, but time and time again it became clear to me that the only person that could be there for me and know me fully was me.

Everything I wanted and needed I could do by myself. I held my own hands, I cried and I bled and I stayed up all night on my Notes app trying to figure out what was wrong with me and what I should even try to do next. With self-reliance came a growing doubt of innate goodness and it’s potential to even knock on the door to my life. Believing I didn’t need any of it was proof that I was different and I was stronger. I could make it all happen myself and I would be okay no matter what happened.

Now there is some truth to the credo and that has served me well. I stopped searching for safety in other places and I stopped putting my hopes and dreams in other people. When I had an idea, I usually eventually tried it. I knew that the right things would happen to me if I just kept on doing this, but at the end of the day I became pretty jaded. When I met people at parties, I was skeptical. When an exciting strand lowered itself into my life, I waited expectantly for the edges to fray. When one more of my ideas remained untouched for a bit too long, I destined myself to resolute stasis. The unfortunate truth was at long last revealed: I was a certified cynic.

Somewhere between 2025 and 2026, tugging on my cobalt tights and fastening my sparkly earrings, I scribbled down one sentence to mark the year on my notepad. I hadn’t (and still haven’t) written my intentions and goals for the year, a practice I’ve been doing for close to a decade. I’d been fighting demons for the past month, doubting myself yet trying so hard to not, to believe that I could change past patterns and come out stronger. I was at home but it wasn’t my home anymore because I had built my own home somewhere else now. Optic nerves firing, fingernail prints in my palms. Procrastinating my own intentionality meant I wasn’t being delivered gently via stork into the new year but rather launching directly into it’s crashing torment.

I’m not a fully formed butterfly, but I’ve been wrestling in a chrysalis over the past few months. That I could succumb to my own innate softness and not feel weak but rather celebrated was akin to the jab and poke of a flash tattoo, a gentle scratch to the cerebral cortex. Things are starting to change, and it feels different. I wanted them to, to feel my pillow skin and peach knees knocking beneath a billowing bedsheet and to let myself feel unabashed joy and crinkles in my eyes, smiles on pretty pink lips. Doing so meant confronting who I had become along the way.

I have a lot of ideas. I have a lot of plans. I haven’t written them all down and I haven’t sorted through all of them. And if you haven’t figured out what’s going on in your big beautiful 2026 yet, that is perfectly fine. I think it’s wonderful to do things with some form of regularity in your life, to maintain rituals and practices that ground you in some form of self. But there is something equally and perhaps more wonderful in abandoning things you don’t feel like doing. Or doing them when you want to do them. Or doing them in a new way. Maybe not thinking for once is actually the key.

In a way, I feel like I exist in a constant state of ennui, never satisfied and always wondering what else is out there for me. I’m living in Reality Bites, trying to do all of the right things but perpetually succumbing to the fact that I don’t love how things are all “supposed” to be. One thing I’ve gotten just a little good at is holding two truths in one hand, and one of the truths is just uncertainty. Perhaps I am scared to even break ground on the year because I know that if I fully unleash the kraken that I am going to find myself underwater in an abyss of unknown. I am scared, yes. But for the first time in awhile I am also excited and trust myself to actually be okay. Maybe there’s still a bit of my rose-tinged teen angst resting on the surface of my soul. I just want to believe that good things can happen to me. And that it all doesn’t have to be so hard.

Reality Bites (1994)

THE MEDIA CORNER

Watch: Lost Highway (1997) dir. David Lynch

Did ya hear: I started a movie club ! Last weekend, we met up at Nitehawk Cinema in Park Slope to watch Lost Highway before discussing after. More to come on Ruby Film Club #watch #this #space.

David Lynch content is going to mess up your brain, and I say this as someone who has barely scratched the surface of his repertoire. Of the three (3) works of his that I’ve watched, I found this one the most accessible if not still dizzying in the most wonderful of ways. Lynch truly invented LA ennui film core and I also think he invented lamps. Considered a surrealist neo-noir horror film, Lost Highway follows a saxophonist who receives unmarked VHS tapes showing footage of his home before being arrested for murdering his wife. Somewhere along the way, his story line is replaced by that of a young man leading a completely different life. Very much in line with his other works, it wrestles with themes of violence and danger within domestic spaces. Many parts of the film exactly mirror the short film Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) by Maya Deren.¹ If you’re a huge Lynch fan, maybe this won’t be your fav. But it will still rock your socks off and make you say “wow” a bunch of times. Also the soundtrack by Trent Reznor is quite baller.

Listen to: Vince Staples

One Sunday night in high school, I went on a date to a Vince Staples concert in Wrigleyville and felt extremely cool. I had never really listened to this kind of music before at that time in my life, and I think I was one of five women there. Although that was a decade and many lifetimes ago, Vince Staples’ West Coast hip hop remains strikingly unique amongst a sea of popular rap music, leveraging disarming sounds and avant-garde beats to backtrack political lyrics. My guy recently took a visit to the Criterion Closet and has been making the rounds on various podcasts dropping absolutely real and witty truths. Check out his music; I’m a big fan of Prima Donna, Norf Norf, Jump Off The Roof, and Big Fish Theory.

Read: Flowers in Cinema

There are some Substacks that I simply must read every time they publish, and Flowers in Cinema is one of them. Iris Diane Palma loves flowers and cinema and gosh, so do I! The way she writes about florals and the roles they play in movies of all sorts just makes my heart so happy. This most recent piece on carnations was a most lovely read and now I want to watch To Catch a Thief ASAP. I also loved this piece that interviews florists and asks them what their favorite movie of the year was. Consider my watchlist and my Pinterest extremely padded.

Try: Rhode glazing milk

I feel silly recommending this because I fully fell for the Harris Dickinson marketing campaign over the summer. My sister told me the Rhode lippies were not it, but I can and will always be searching for another blush, and have been loving their pocket blush formula (particularly in freckle). But what the hell is milk for your face? And so I’ve found myself with this new product that is essentially a toner, which I’ve long believed is a fake skincare routine step invented by Clinique. But sue me, my face has perhaps never felt softer than after glazing it with this stuff. Indeed I feel like a glazed doughnut (positive). Worth the splurge if you want to make a fun skincare purchase.

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As always, thank you for reading Sometimes Y. If you made it this far, please press that heart. x

1. Thank u Sloane <3