For most of my twenties, I had carried trauma from events that happened when I was a teenager. It’s no surprise that in the seven years I’ve been writing for the blog, I spoke about this trauma to acknowledge it, accept it, and to diffuse the energy that I allowed for it to carry. Within this last decade, I’ve sat down with my therapist to talk about the events in detail and identify the triggers so that when they arise, I don’t allow it to affect me as it usually does. This work took years for me to finally accept it for what it was and to ultimately forgive myself for the role I played in this event. It wasn’t until later in life that I decided to forgive those who contributed to my trauma; not because I actually forgave them, but because I need to move on and, yet again, diffuse the energy it held. I finally allowed myself to let that trauma go and not let it affect how i lived my life back in 2021.
I was finally free from ever experiencing another ‘traumaversary’; you know, the time of year when the traumatic event happened. Mine were in January and in May; it felt good to take back the positive energy of my birthday month and what was once my favorite month of the year because the weather was at it’s best this time of year.
That was, until February 2023 came around and gave me some new traumaversaries; back to back in the same week.
Hi, my name is Liz, and I am currently going through my 1st-year traumaversary. It is notable that the first year is the most challenging.
The thing about having a traumaversary is that it is sort of like a holiday; you don’t really think about it until the time of year comes around. After moving forward from that situation, I went about my life and made 2023 one of the best years I’ve had in recent date. I entered 2024 knowing that this time of year would come again and I would be brought back to thinking about my trauma in ways that normally would not trigger me. For example, I went for my usual coffee talk and put a random playlist on shuffle. I skipped a couple of songs until this one particular song began to play, and I was immediately taken back to red hair and bleach-eyebrow Liz, sitting on my bed crying my eyes out and singing along. The lyrics to the song talk about being heartbroken and wanting nothing more than to erase the memories away by destroying yourself in the process. I immediately skipped it, not being able to handle listening to the song.
This song was one of my top played songs of 2023.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is that trauma resurfaces in ways that you’re not always ready for, no matter how long its been since going through that traumatic experience or how much progress you’ve made in healing from that trauma. Trauma isn’t linear, and you never really know when or how it will resurface itself; for me, it’s always around the time of year that the event happened. During that time of year, I am extra cautious when it comes to my mental health and my overall well-being.
I am reminded that I’ve come a long way since experiencing that trauma. I make sure to let myself know that I did what I needed to do for myself in order to move forward and begin the process of healing. Since then, I’ve learned so much about my needs and what type of interactions with people I wanted to have. I’ve learned how to be my own best friend by taking myself out to shows and concerts and give myself the same love and care I would give to others. I’ve learned that I also need to have boundaries with myself because I am not perfect nor am I excluded from having the toxic traits that I don’t allow others to have around me. Although I am able to move on with my life and learn from these unfortunate events, it still doesn’t make these anniversaries any easier, especially if they are from recent.
For me, I am taking care of my mental health by doing some self care; in this case, it’s writing a lot. Writing helps me diffuse that energy that these events still carry, and talking about them out loud instead of allowing it to circulate in my mind until the time passes. I know that in this time, I will mourn the loss of the person I was prior to this traumatic experience, and yes, I will sink into this rabbit hole and think to myself, “I was so different before everything happened; life was so different.” It’s normal to mourn the losses that these events caused, and it’s completely okay to miss the people involved and the person you were, but you have to remind yourself why you chose to make the decisions you made and again, remind yourself that the progress you made since experiencing any trauma is worth acknowledging.
At the end of the day, your traumaversary will pass, and you will make it to see another day, week, and year. Just be gentle with yourself.
Back when I was a bookseller, I didn’t understand the work ethic of my assistant manager.
Our workplace had opinions on how she worked and interacted with her staff. She wasn’t a horrible person to interact with, but I would always tell myself and those around me “if she was a bookseller, I think we’d all get along with her better. As the assistant manager though…” We all, to some extent, agreed on this statement.
We were all a pretty young group; we were the new generation of store managers and booksellers after a long reign of notable booksellers and managers. We were swarmed with faculty and administrators looking for the old store managers and hoping that they would “fulfill this request” like they would have in the past.
I was the oldest in our group of booksellers. I was 25; a year out of grad school just trying to get some work experience so that I was able to move forward with what I really wanted to do down the line: help students on the college level. Those around me were fresh out of college or just starting college, looking to get a job either on campus so that they were able to attend their classes before and after work, or those that lived within 15 minutes of the college. After me was my manager, who was 27 at the time that I started my job at the bookstore. To be 27 and run an entire campus bookstore? That took balls to do. Although she was young, she was professional and felt wiser beyond her age, and she was older than all of us so of course we showed some respect.
Our assistant manager came in during the first day of classes, or what was “rush” for us. “Rush” was the first week of classes that we were the busiest. We all thought she was just another bookseller being added to our team, until we were told she was our assistant manager.
Later in the months to come, we found out that she was just 20 years old, making her the second youngest amongst us all.
Back then, I didn’t understand why she worked the way she did. I didn’t understand how someone knew what they were talking about, but had a hard time communicating that to us. I didn’t understand why she managed us so drastically different than how our store manager did.
I didn’t understand how someone that was one of the youngest in our workplace even have enough experience to get into a managerial-level position until I did.
Hi, my name is Liz, and I am the youngest person in my office in a managerial-level position with only 2 years of experience under my belt.
I sometimes wonder if my old assistant manager felt this constant pressure of being older in the workplace. You should dress like this and you should talk like that and you should present yourself in a way where you look like you know what you’re talking about. You think that you have to act like you’re older because you had an encounter where a student thought you were a student and didn’t believe anything you were saying to them. You think that you have to change your language and code-switch to a more professional-sounding voice; using “I am following up with an inquiry you addressed per your last email” instead of “I’m reaching out about that request you sent in your last email.” You think that you have to be this person that is older beyond your years, without realizing that your youth brings something special and new to the table.
Instead, you are slammed by faculty, administrators, and former students whose age is way past the mid-life crisis phase for sounding “too young”, therefore “not knowing what I’m talking about”. You start to wonder if you’re even worth of the position you’re in because of these various factors. You develop some extreme imposter syndrome, deeming anyone and everyone who’s older and wiser than you a better fit.
In higher education, I’ve learned that these things I’m feeling are very apparent and visible to those who experience it. Those who work in it work in the field until retirement. They make connections with each other in different departments, trusting each other with their work and are constantly doing favors for one another due to the fact that they worked together on making a situation right. Being new and young in higher education makes it hard to gain that with other people, and people are not willing to trust newcomers that they don’t know or haven’t ever heard of before.
They deem you as new, they deem you as entry level, and they deem you as incompetent of sharing information and being correct about that information. She’s young; she can’t possibly know what I’m talking about. I’ll ask *insert someone older than me* instead. Being young in a workplace that has notably older than your generation makes you feel all the things you think others are projecting onto you: you’re too young to be in the position you’re in, so you have to constantly prove yourself.
Prove that you’re knowledgeable, wise, and competent, while trying to maintain your youth.
At my desk in my very-big-girl-job are stuffed animals that once lived in my room growing up, and crochet chicks that I did over the winter break. I have two Care Bear plushies with my cats pictures on them. I had a Kpop themed 2023 calendar, and still have Victon’s Seungsik calendar on my desk. I currently have Valentine’s day hearts hanging from the rim of my desk. I am known to unapologetically be myself in a setting that can suck the fun out of things. In everyday life, I am the things I place on my desk; bright, colorful, and festive, so why must I dim my light to fit the standards of working in a professional setting? Why can’t we be ourselves and be professional? Why can’t we be wise, smart, professional and young? Why must I sacrifice my youth when in all reality, my generation of professionals are going to be the ones running the same offices in 10, 20 years from now? Why can’t we use our youth as a way to relate to our students; to make them understand that we are not all ancient and dusty and detached from reality?
Why must I feel like the only reason I experience impostor syndrome isn’t because I think I don’t do my job well or don’t know what I’m doing in this position, but because of my age? When are we going to stop believing that we aren’t worthy of our place in professional settings because of our age? I know that this feeling will pass one day. I know that I will one day feel like I’m worthy of my place in my career as I grow more into this role. I know down the line, I will see people even younger than me in positions like my own, and I hope to one day meet them and ask them if they feel the same way as I do.
Nothing that I do professionally is ever conventional. In a field of scholars with PhDs and accolades under their belts, I was able to publish my first ever article in an academic journal at the age of 27; something only those with experience and education do and be taken seriously. This time around, I am in a position that most people tend to have later in their 30s/early 40s. I guess this is just something that I do.
And maybe, that just says something about me and my work ethic.
I know we just met and we’re getting to know each other, but I wanted to let you know that I am excited to finally meet you. I’ve dreaded to do so in the past, feeling like meeting you would mark the end of my youth and things would just start to feel and get more serious. I was like I wasn’t ready to take on the responsibility that I would inevitably have to take, and for quite a while thought I wouldn’t ever be ready for.
But here I am, meeting you for the first time, not feeling as scared as I once was.
I know my 20s have gave you all of the insight you need to know about me. I know my 20s told you how impulsive I can be; changing my appearance and wanting to control every little thing about myself since having weight loss surgery at 27. I know my 20s told you that I challenge my anxiety every single day by doing something outside of my comfort zone ever since being first diagnosed with a disorder at 24. I know my 20’s told you that even though you are meeting me at the best part of my life, they have seen me at my lowest: 21. 23. 25, 26, a bit of 27.
I know my track record doesn’t look that great; sure, I’m in the best place I’ve been in my life, but that only came after becoming burnt out studying and getting two college degrees in the process, losing family members through sickness and cancer, losing childhood pets and animals to old age, losing friends in the various stages of my life– for fuck’s sake, I lost a lot during my 20s, and I am constantly afraid of losing anything else I have. I know they told you that it nearly took me a decade to finally figure shit out and learn things that although I’ve been told a thousand times, needed to figure out in my own timing.
You will come to learn that I am a walking diary, and this new decade of my life is just the start of another book to document all that is to come in this next decade. You will come to learn that I write down everything because I remember almost everything; I guess that comes with being a writer though. You will come to learn that I mark my success and my growth through the years—if you haven’t figured that out yet. You will come to learn that I’m trying to do things differently than what I grew up seeing and what I was taught to be when it was time for me to grow up. You will come to learn that I’m a simple being that simply wants to feel happiness after decades of feeling like I wasn’t deserving of it. You will come to learn that I hold myself on a high pedestal after decades of convincing myself it was selfish to actually see worth in yourself.
I know my 20s have told you all about me, and I know you’re not too sure how to proceed with me, but I know that you’ll learn that I’m just a creature of exploration, passion, dedication and motivation. I know that you’ll be able to talk me through the toughest decisions this next decade of life has like saving money for rent and utilities, taking care of family in the way they took care of me, appreciating the smaller things in life that I overlooked in my 20s, and so many other things that I know I won’t ever be prepared enough for. But I have faith in you, 30s, to continue teaching me and guiding me in the direction that I am meant to go on, and to continue help me grow as a person and seeing just where I fit in in this world.
I am excited for you, and I am ready for you. Hello, and welcome, 30s. My name is Liz.
I wish I celebrated you more when I had the chance. I don’t regret it, but I wish I knew what I know now about what life would be like in your twenties. But I guess that’s the point of being in your twenties: you learn things about life that you didn’t know you needed to learn.
I learned that the past will always be the past, and you have control over what lessons you take from it. I learned that I have embedded traits; the ones where you want to desperately want to change but in the end can really never shake off. I learned that there are always going to be gray areas in things that are back and white, and what works for the next person may not work for you in the long run. I learned that mistakes are inevitable no matter how wise you’ve become.
I learned that these years are meant to be the messy ones: you learn that your circle of friends get smaller and smaller once you’re out of college and into the real world; and speaking of college, you learn that your college education and degrees truly don’t guarantee you a job once you graduate; you get them by utilizing the people you’ve met in these years and networking with others in your field. You learn that your relationship at 21 in a big city will not always look like a relationship at 21 in a small town; you will not be married by the age of 26, which is what I thought will happen prior to entering my twenties.
I learned that it’s okay to not know what your path of life is after leaving college; I learned that you’re not fully an adult at 22 as much as life wants you to be one. Shoot, you’re not truly an adult even after graduating with your masters degree at 24. I learned that you will go through a dozen different versions of yourself, trying each one out like a new pair of clothing and see which one feels the most comfortable in; the most authentic you. I learned that in these years, you are meant to still live life and feel young; something I took for granted in my own 20s thinking I needed to have my life figured out by then. I learned that we are not our parents, nor in their generation, and the things that they did during our age will not look like the things we are doing in ours. It’s okay to be in your 20s and still live at home. It’s okay to not want to have children in those prime years of your 20s if you do not feel fit to be a parent. It’s okay to readmit into college after 25 and who cares if you are taking the same coursework as those just entering their 20s?
I’ve learned that it’s okay to be a late bloomer– whether that be professionally, socially, academically, or spiritually– in your 20s.
I learned that your 20s are meant for constant change. These are the years that you go through different phases in your life, like a full-blown K-pop stan stage from 26 to 28or a true-crime screenwriter stage from 20 to 22. I learned that these interests will never completely identify you, as you are constantly growing in and out of things through your 20s. I entered my 20s wanting to become a TV screenwriter and now leaving my 20s working as a professional administrator in higher education. Sure, we choose the paths we want to cross during our young adulthood but you learn that you never truly end up where you thought you’d be.
I learned that your life isn’t over when your 20s are. I learned that your 29th year on this earth will be your most influential one; it will test you for what’s to come if you are not prepared for it. I learned that what those people told you throughout your 20s is true about your 30s: you stop looking for validation from other people and other things because you already are in a space where you’re able to validate yourself. You don’t care what other people have to say about you or how they feel about you because you already know how it feels to be your own best friend, enemy, cheerleader, and judge by just getting to live in your skin 24/7. You feel secure in who you are and what you are because you spent the majority of your 20s finding out what that means for you.
I think I will celebrate my 30s knowing that my 20s deserved to be loved and supported in every way possible. I know my 20s spent the first half trying to heal from my teens and that the last half was spent to give everything my teens couldn’t get. I guess my 30s will be just that: celebrating everything that I gained, lost, yearned for, and received in my 20s.
To my twenties— thank you for such a monumental decade of my life.
January 1st feels just like the number 0. It feels like the start space on a board game. It feels like midnight, but in military time; 00:00. January 1st, no matter what day it lands on, will always feel like an unofficial reset. This year, it falls on a Monday.
A weekend of self-reflection and celebration has passed. The last weekend of 2023 has come and gone, and here we are starting a new week. Yes, technically Sunday would make it a new week, but we count that as the end of the week since it’s a part of the weekend.
January 1st, 2024. The reset button. The “thank God the year officially ended” feeling. The “I hope 2024 treats me well” resolution.
The “1994 babies, it’s your time to say hello to 30!” talks with those that either are 30 or are turning 30 in the coming years.
Hi, my name is Liz, and I am a 1994 baby; 8 days away from being 30.
January 1st is more than just another reset to another year; it’s the start of a new decade of life. Experiences. Goals, aspirations, plans to see 40 in the next decade of life. The decade that takes everything you learned in your 20s and now practice those life lessons in your 30s. The decade where you might get married, have kids, attend other people’s weddings and baby showers and kid birthday parties. The decade where you understand your parents a bit more, as they were once your age figuring it all out just like you.
It’s truly the decade where you don’t give a shit; you’ve spent so much of your time doing so in your 20s and it never ends up being worth it. It’s the decade that you start not only living for yourself, but you start living as yourself; no façade, no persona, it’s just you.
And I think I’m excited for just that. Pushing the reset button to start a new decade in life. To live this Monday and see it as a fresh start, leaving last week in the past year. Standing at the “start” space on a board game of life. Looking at the clock strike midnight and think, “I have another 24 hours to get it right.”
January 1st, 2024. The first page of the first chapter in many chapters to come.
I can remember the names of every best friend I’ve had since I was four years old. I always had a best friend. It was that feeling that the person you told your deepest secrets to, the person that you saw every day and knew every little thing about, was what made having a best friend so fun. Like every best friend, there were fights, falling outs, and everything else that came with having someone in your life that meant that much to you.
When I was younger, I saw my best friends more than just that. They were sisters, they were brothers, and some became crushes at one point. Some of these best friends shaped me as as person growing up, and others taught me life lessons that I still live by to this day. Most, if not all, have taught me one important lesson that I never fully understand until I lost my best friends through disagreements, arguments, or simply just growing apart.
Hi, my name is Liz, and I am truly my own best friend.
People say this all the time when we are growing up; at the end of the day, you only have yourself to support, care, and love for once everyone else leaves. The person you spend the most time on this earth is truly yourself, and even though it’s important to have connections with other people, it’s also important to know that your own company is the one that truly matters. Spend your time on good terms with yourself, treat yourself the way that you would treat others. It wasn’t until I went through my twenties figuring this out. I sought out friends to help define who I was and thought that something was wrong with me when I said I didn’t have friends. I thought that my social anxiety disorder was the blame to why I couldn’t make friends, but ironically thought it was to blame when I couldn’t keep friends.
I love my friends when I have them, but I quickly realized that the love I have for my friends need healthy boundaries, something you aren’t taught when you first make friends early on in your life. I love my friends when I have them, but I knew that the love I have for them quickly replaces the love I should be giving myself. So yeah, friendship breakups were ugly, just how romantic ones can be.
When you start focusing on loving yourself, setting the healthy boundaries you need with yourself, and start to see yourself as another human being that is worthy of love too, that’s when you realize that your true best friend is yourself.
When you see yourself as your own best friend, you start to do things that you normally wouldn’t have done for yourself. For me, I started to take myself out more often. I went to more concerts and shows, planned more trips and attended more events without the need of someone else. For me, I do not see these solo adventures as pity; “Why are you doing that by yourself? Don’t you want to bring friends?” Those questions are normal to hear when you say that you’re doing things on your own. For me, I am going out with a friend; me. And sure, you might read this and think it’s pretty pathetic, but no matter what type of person you are, the best and healthiest friendship to have is with yourself.
Compliment yourself. Go out to dinner with yourself. Go to a concert (or two) by yourself. Stick up for yourself the way you would for other human beings you call friends. Show yourself the same love and energy you would for another person you would call your friend. Fuck it, be your own best friend, because it will be the best fucking friend you’ll ever have in life.
To be selfish and to feel guilty are universally two things that are meant to be negative. We as a society look down on selfishness; we think those who are selfish are incapable of caring about other people’s feelings, are narcissistic, and are all-around toxic human beings. We are taught at a young age to always be nice to people, and to the key to being a good person is being good to those around you, no matter what. We are taught to always do the right thing, even when it doesn’t always feel like we are truly doing the wrong thing for ourselves.
And then you grow up to be a people-pleaser, pleasing everyone around you because you were taught that was what made you a good person. Being selfish makes you a bad person, according to society. So when you find yourself putting your foot down to take care of your own well-being, knowing that what was ultimately bringing you down was the idea that you had to please everyone around you, you start to be labeled as selfish. Self-centered. Narcissistic, even. How do we live in a society that accepts self-love, but is so quick to call you selfish for doing just that? After a while, you start to feel guilty for the decisions you make. You think that every decision you make for yourself and what you may possibly need to do for yourself is considered selfish.
If you feel guilty for making decisions depending on what you want and need out of life, then you are doing it right.
Hi, my nameis Liz, and I am learning that feeling guilty for being selfish with yourself does not make you a bad person.
A couple of weeks ago, I went into my therapy session talking about all the fun and amazing things I’ve been doing lately. I told my therapist that I went to a taping of The Kelly Clarkson Show back in October, and I even went to my first adult Halloween party and wasn’t severely anxious. She was happy for me, telling me that I was now doing the things I told her all of these years I eventually wanted to do when I was ready. In true Cathy-fashion, she asked me what do I think was the shift in me; when do I think was the changing point in which I felt like I was ready to do these things and not second guess myself doing them?
I told her it was when I stopped feeling guilty for doing things for myself, for the intent of making myself happy.
The thing about being in a transitional phase of your life is that you will feel guilty for leaving the people that you have been with when you were stagnant. The people that met you in the time of your life before your transitional phase begin to see your progress as abandonment to their relationship with them. People will be happy for you because they should be, it makes them look like a good person. But, they will make sure that you know that while you’re bettering yourself, you’re leaving them behind.
I felt guilty for most of the decisions I made; going to concerts by myself, going out for the night with friends and staying off the internet as much as possible doing so. My life was not only transitioning emotionally and physically, but it was also transitioning to be in a more present state of mind. That didn’t include my online persona anymore.
I felt guilty for showing up for myself first instead of showing up for others, pleasing those who were stuck viewing me as I once was.
I had to learn that the guilt didn’t come from me making bad decisions; how is showing up for yourself a bad decision? The guilt, however, came from the influence of society’s view of what it meant to be a good person. Put others first. Be considerate of other people’s feelings despite how much they contrast from your own. Always show up for people and attend to them before you do the same for yourself. I was constantly being told I had to do things and be a certain way to be liked and to keep people in my life, despite how I felt or what I was personally going through.
And let’s get one thing straight: I am not bitter nor am I saying the people around me needed to respect and understand my transitional phase. As I get older, I am learning that not everyone will see things the way I do or react to things the way I do. Some will, most will not.
But one thing that should be universally understood is that any steps made towards being a better version of yourself should be accepting. We shouldn’t feel guilty for letting things that do not serve us anymore go or simply doing things that nurtures our soul.
It’s why I ultimately let penpal writing go for good after doing it for two years. Granted, I should’ve stopped doing it a year ago when I fell out of love with the hobby, but the level of guilt for leaving people behind and letting go a part of my identity was too strong for me to do it sooner. Sure, I still have some guilt behind the decision, but my soul feels lighter. It feels excited to fill in that spot with something that truly excites me. I know eventually the guilt will go away, as it did for everything else I left behind this past year, and I know that in the end it was the right decision.
Because like I said: if you are feeling guilty for doing something for yourself, it means you are doing whatever you doing right.
Picture this: It’s the end of a long workweek. You take off your work clothes and hop into something more cozy for the night after taking a hot shower. You look at your phone– at this point, it’s just habit– and see your social media followers post how their night is going on their IG stories. Some are at a small concert somewhere in the city. Some are posting boomerangs of the cute drinks they bought at a bar. Some are just hanging out with their friends, celebrating the end of the week and the beginning of the weekend. You don’t feel like you’re missing out on all the fun and cool things happening in the world, and you don’t feel the need to force anything you’re really not up for doing. You feel content. You feel okay. You feel… well, at peace.
It was a particularly cold and rainy April day, yet I felt like I needed to leave the house before I drowned in my thoughts. My eyes were puffy, and my head hurt; nothing I deemed as a coping skill was working. I have to go for a walk before I lose my mind. I walked for about 2 miles before deciding to sit in a Dunkin Donuts; of course, I bought myself a hot coffee and decided to write a blog post to distract myself. It didn’t work.
It wasn’t until I decided to walk home and listen to WOODZ’s new album that everything hit me at once. Why was I allowing other people’s actions to control my mental health? Why was I solely blaming myself for the failed friendships, making myself feel like I deserved all of the bad things happening to me, and telling myself that I was nothing but a bad person.
I was tired of feeling the way that I did, and I was tired of history repeating itself in stages of my life where I knew better. This time, I wanted to get over this funk differently. Instead of allowing myself to feel like a victim in everything happening, I wanted to change how I viewed my role in these situations and learn from it. It took some ups and downs to finally realize that I needed to change my mentality in order to live a peaceful life. I was simply tired of allowing myself to get sucked into feeling all these negative things and running from them when it got too hard.
By the summertime, I had set boundaries with the toxic traits embedded in me; traits that I knew were just a part of my psyche and too convoluted to understand and work through. I needed to accept the fact that I was not this perfect person with perfect character traits. I had to accept that some of my toxic traits played numerous roles in the clashing of both past and current relationships and friendships. The same way I would set boundaries with the toxic people in my life, I needed to do the same thing with my own toxic self.
I started eliminating the things that caused me to revert to my toxic traits. I started to restrict my time on social media platforms, filtering the context that made me feel anxious or impulsive (i.e blocking people I had falling outs with, muting stories and posts that were negative, etc). I stopped caring about what other people thought about me by doing things that made me feel good, and I (finally) stopped feeling guilty for doing things I wanted to do and doing them at my own pace.
I went to my second-ever Kpop concert. I went to a taping of The Kelly Clarkson Show. I went to a Halloween party. A Halloween party? Me? I know! Once I started to do things for myself without doubting whether or not I would be okay, I found myself being a very active and busy person. I wanted to do nothing but spend every night after work doing something fun just to celebrate the hard work I did that day. I wanted to go to every concert of every singer and band that I liked, even if I needed to travel to big venues and busy parts of New York City to attend them. I simply wanted to do things that nurtured my younger self, the one that spent decades second guessing everything their worth and their ability to do anything they wanted to do. It was about time I did things solely for the purpose of making the little me the happiest she could possibly be.
A time when things were simple. A time when I always felt at peace, before life got too complicated.
Perhaps this new era of my life is just about me closing a chapter of my life before 2024 comes and I turn 30. Maybe all of this soul-searching and practices to become a better person to myself is me wanting to end my 20s on a good note. I entered my 20s in a good place, and the years in between definitely were not the greatest, nor the easiest for me. I’ve been told for the longest time by women older than me that the 30s are your best years because something just clicks in your head. A lot of the things that were important to you, like vanity and people-pleasing and having huge friend groups, aren’t that important to you anymore. You develop your own style outside of what’s trending, you don’t say yes to everything if you truly feel uncomfortable doing them, and you start to realize and appreciate the things that you have versus wishing on the things that you want. I guess it finally clicked with me, and perhaps having a peaceful life simply comes with age and maturing. Maybe I’m finally maturing.
Whatever this era symbolizes or means in the long run, I just know that when I sit down, take a deep breath, and begin to reflect on this last year, I smile and simply say, “Finally”.
The year is 2018. The newly-opened laundromat opened a block away from my apartment building, and it was my turn to do laundry with my mother on this cold, winter day in February. It was during the week, so the laundromat was empty that afternoon. As my mom and I waited for our clothes to be done in the dryer, the owner of the laundromat decided to put on music videos of various Asian artists. It wasn’t until this one video came on the screen of 9 girls in a very colorful setting. I wasn’t sure what language they were singing, but the song was super catchy. After seeing the name of the song appear on the TV, I learned that the cute and catchy song playing was called “Knock Knock” by TWICE. TWICE; I feel like I heard of the name before… After listening to a couple of other songs from the group play on the TV screen, I was interested to learn more about the group and see what other songs they had out. Me, thinking that “Knock Knock” was their most recent song, I learned that even though this song was only released a year ago, it was their 3rd most recent song to date. These girls are working hard, huh? I went home and decided to do some more research on the group, and from there, well, the rest was K-pop history.
Until K-pop became a part of my own history.
Hi, my name is Liz, and I’m here to explain to you all about the stages of being a K-pop stan, as told by someone who was once a K-pop stan herself.
The first stage: the discovery.
Discovering K-pop is always something exciting, especially if you are not naive to its origin country, South Korea. Sure, you’ve heard of Spanish music and other music genres related to their native countries, but K-pop songs have a different appeal. They’re colorful, they have young and talented artists, they’re all gorgeous and fashionable, and if you were lucky enough to discover K-pop in its later generations, you would even have some English lyrics to sing along to just so that you had their songs stuck in your head all day. K-pop in a whole has something that many of us (especially millennials) miss in music: successful boy and girl groups. Our first taste of it was with groups such as The Spice Girls, TLC, Destiny’s Child, Boyz II Men, N*SYNC; the list literally goes on. It’s something that western music hasn’t mastered since it’s very cringe but highly successful Fifth Harmony days a decade ago. To see these different groups live their lives as one and to treat each other more like family than band mates gives us that feeling that we experienced with groups we grew up listening to.
Plus, these K-pop groups were young, fresh, which makes us relate to the genre even more, and yes, even in older generations when K-pop debuted artists in their late teens. The genre as a whole is fascinating, and with something fascinating, you learn more about it.
The second stage: the research.
You search on Spotify for the group you’re currently into to listen to their discography and to your surprise, they release new music every 3- 6 months. What? You’re trying to tell me that these groups can release multiple albums a year? We were lucky if we got a new album from our favorite western artist once every two years. You have a lot of music to catch up on now. You’re vibing, you’re putting songs on repeat, and now you’re interested to see if these songs have music videos to them. So, you go on YouTube and before you know it, you are down the rabbit hole of music videos, funny “iconic” moments of the group, and the infamous “Guide to [insert group name here]”, and now you’re sitting there watching a 30 minute video about each of the members in said group. You get to know the group and its members a lot more, and now YouTube recommends you videos of music videos from other K-pop groups; mine was BlackPink. At this point, you’re well diverted in a couple of groups thanks to YouTube and the K-pop encyclopedia, K-Profiles.
The third stage: Bias choosing.
There are two types of people in this world: the people that like every single member of a group equally and think everyone should be treated equally… and then you have those who only really like one person of a group, which is something K-pop encourages listeners to do. Pick a bias, but that member’s version of merch, album, and anything that is member specific to you bias. Maybe you like the main vocalist of a group. Maybe you gravitate towards the rapper of the group. Perhaps you are always rooting for the underdog of the group, the member who doesn’t really have a set position, but is still super talented. You start to realize that this bias is now one of your favorite K-pop artists, so you start watching content of the group just to watch your bias. You coo and you smile, calling him/her cute and catching all the Korean lingo that you hear them say. This group is now your favorite K-pop group of them all. You know their discography by heart. You’ve watched every video and variety show of this group to exist online with English subtitles. If the group was created through an “American Idol-esque” talent show, you watched every episode of that. You know each members MBTI and birthdays and ages and even blood type. Listening to their music isn’t enough anymore.
The fourth stage: The identity crisis.
Annyeonghaseyo! Jeoneun Liz-imnida! You think you could learn Korean on a little green bird app so that you’re able to understand your K-pop idols without the subtitles. Yes, you also learned that they are called idols instead of artists. You’re starting to pick up little Korean phases by binge-watching all of your favorite idols livestreams and online content, and you start to use them in every day conversation because it’s different. At this point, the K-pop interest you had is now slowly becoming a part of your identity. You only talk about Korean idols and K-pop, your content on social media is just a K-pop dumping ground of stuff, and your playlists on your Spotify mainly consist of K-pop music. You’re in this weird phase in life where you feel like this is the most authentic you’ve ever been with yourself, but feeling as if liking this specific genre of music is not age appropriate for you. You watch other K-pop stans online and notice that they not only listen to their favorite groups, but they buy their albums. I mean, we bought our favorite artist’s albums when we were growing up; this is just an extension of that really! You find an album that you really like and you either order it on Amazon or eBay since those are the only places you know that sell anything and everything; including K-pop albums.
The fifth stage: The K-pop collecting community.
You’ve bought every single album and version of each album for your favorite groups and notice that each one comes with a Photocard. You keep the small stack of photocards until you realize that the other ones that come in that particular album are much cuter, or, they are of your bias. You really want that card so you can put it behind your clear phone case and show the entire world who your K-pop bias is. You look online and notice that someone on social media is looking to trade the card you want for the card you already have on hand. You decide to open up an Instagram account and put a picture of your bias’ face as your profile picture. Your username has either the words ‘sale’, ‘collect’ or ‘trade’ on it. You put up the cards you want to sell or trade for with 500 hashtags, hoping someone has the card you’re looking for and is looking for the one you have on hand. You are now officially a K-pop collector: you create templates of all of the cards you need to obtain this collection, you buy trading card sleeves and binders to store your photocards in once you get them and yes, never let them see the light of day again, and now you are actively looking up the hashtags to see if you can go on the hunt for your most wanted photocards. You’ve picked up the lingo of the community, you’ve put yourself out there so that other collectors know who you are, and this is possibly the easiest way you can make a group of friends ever. You feel as if you finally belong in a community and feel seen.
You finally feel like yourself, until you realize that being a K-pop stan isn’t really an identity factor.
The sixth stage: The toxicity of every community.
You find yourself noticing a couple of bad things in the community you confidently called home for awhile. You’ve grown into it; you’re considered a veteran in the community, and everyone knows who you are or you’ve interacted with at least most of the community you’re a part of. Of course, this aspect applies to smaller fandoms within the K-pop community, unless you’re well-known in different fandoms; a multi-stan as they put it. You start to notice things just not being the same anymore; the appeal is losing its shiny exterior. You find it hard to spend money on things like photocards and albums, but you still do because you haven’t quite let that go yet. You find yourself not trading or selling things anymore; you just toss out anything and everything that isn’t selling. You still hold onto your presence in the community just to say you’re in the community, but you find yourself coming around once every comeback or whenever you are desperate to sell some things. You’re starting to view the community in the way many outsiders would: obnoxious. Obsessed. Delusional. You can say these things because you were also once obnoxious. Obsessed. D E L U S I O N A L.
At this point, you know more about the community and understand that the industry’s tactic is to make fans because that idols personally care and love them; of course with the cost of buying thousands of dollars worth of albums to even be considered the chance for a minute and 30 seconds of screen-time with your favorite group. You understand that K-pop is mainly harmless, but so harmful for those that lack the skills to be aware of these industry tactics. At this point, you realize that K-pop is just another genre of music, and there’s nothing truly special about it besides the fact that a community was built around it for it seamlessly being ‘different’.
The seventh stage: The casual K-pop listener.
If you made it this far, you might find yourself spending your money on other things that bring you joy. You might listen to a couple of K-pop songs here and there, but you don’t find yourself buying anything K-pop related. You don’t really talk about K-pop in the way you used to. You lost contact with those who you call friends in the community simply because you’ve realized that outside of K-pop, you really didn’t have much in common. You either delete your K-pop based social media accounts or make them inactive. The posters of the different K-pop groups you loved slowly come down from your walls. You begin to put your K-pop albums away in the closet and throw out any duplicates of albums you were holding onto just because. Your collection becomes smaller or it’s non-existing these days.
The last stage: The former K-pop stan.
You reflect back on your days being an active K-pop stan. It makes you cringe a bit, but you can’t deny the fact that it came at a part in your life when you needed that. You knew that part of your life was important and needed in order to be where you’re currently at and where you’re going. You feel like you’re losing a huge part of yourself; long gone are the days when you introduced yourself as a K-pop collector. So what are your interests and hobbies? Well, shit; I don’t even know. Some days, you grieve the days where you got excited for comebacks from your favorite K-pop artists with the friends you made in the community. Let’s call a spade a spade: you grieve the loss of your identity.
The chapter that you were so afraid of ending one day has come to an end, and like with everything else in life, you learn to move forward with life simply by letting time pass by.
When I graduated high school at 18 years old, I didn’t think college was going to be for me. My first semester of college was a challenging one; I was thrown into a new atmosphere not feeling ready for the experience that college was. I was left thinking, “Maybe college isn’t for me” when I knew deep down that this was the route I was meant to take for the next couple of years.
When I was on the path to graduating college at 22 years old, I didn’t think grad school was going to be for me. Sure, at the time of getting my bachelor’s degree, I felt as if I had a lot more to learn about writing and wanted to better myself as a writer. I was thrown into my graduate studies without any break in between and with truly no guidance. I’ve learned so much about the type of work I want to be a part of, but getting my Master’s degree in English left some emotional and psychological scars in the process.
When I graduated with my master’s at 24 years old, I told myself that I was done being a student and that it was time to get out into the real world and finally get some work experience. At 25, I got my first part-time job at my old college’s bookstore mainly because that’s what I was qualified for not having any prior work experience. By 28, I was able to get my current job at the Registrar’s Office at the same college I got both of my degrees. Of course, everything is made up of hierarchy, which meant I came into the office working part-time, with minimal wage for the first year and a half there. After hard work and consistency, I was able to get the opportunity to develop more as a professional in higher education and get full-time at the office being an Assistant to the Higher Education Office (aHEO).
I turn 30 in a little over 4 months, and more than ever I am figuring out the things I want to achieve in that new decade of my life. My 20s were a time of establishment; figuring out who I was in this society and going through the ups and downs of what it meant to live a life that was in between the early years of young adulthood versus actually entering adulthood.
While I have so much I want to do entering my 30s, something that I subconsciously dreamt of was another graduation day. For a couple of years now, I have had dreams of finishing what I started; I was proud of my accomplishments in college and grad school, but I always wanted to excel in academia. That’s when it finally clicked:
Hi, my name is Liz, and I’m putting it out in the universe to return to school to get my doctorate degree in my 30s.
Setting this goal in mind makes me excited to enter my 30’s, to be honest. I think this is something I thought about a lot but felt like I couldn’t do it after the damage grad school left on me. But, I was 24 years old when I got my master’s degree. I fast-tracked into a program without taking any real break from being a student. I was burnt out but by the time I graduated with my master’s, and when I did leave my student life behind, I had no identity outside of that life. But, I’ve had some time to focus on myself and figure out who I am as an adult in society rather than a student in one. I now have work experience, I’ve done publications, and my resume is actually looking like a true resume! I’m in a really good place with a better understanding of my limits and boundaries. If I didn’t think I could do it, I wouldn’t even consider the thought.
Of course, I still have a ways to go before I actually start filling out applications to doctorate programs. I still need some more work experience in this field I want to pursue as a legitimate career. I want to do my research on the type of doctorate degree I want to pursue. I want to work to prepare myself to return to school, and become a student again; this time one that is a little bit more established and who matured as a person. I want to feel as ready as possible to enter a new program, which is something I didn’t allow myself to do when transitioning from my undergrad to graduate studies.
It’s my drive and passion for excellence and growth that has always put this idea in my mind that I would attend commencement wearing a fabric, doctorate cap & down. I think as time goes on and I officially enter my 30s in a couple of months, I feel this sense of commitment to go ahead and apply to some CUNY EdD programs. In the meantime, I want to continue to work on what it means to be a professional in higher education and learn the methods and techniques to provide a service to faculty, administrators, and students. I also want to completely learn the art of code-meshing in the workplace; how to balance out my professional, formal voice with the likeableness of my everyday, human voice! There’s just so much I am ready to embark on when it comes to my job and I’m excited to do the work that I enjoy so much as I prepare to study more about it in a doctorate program.
With time, I am definitely making at least this dream a reality of mine.
Letters From Liz. 