Once Upon Another Time: on Feeling Caught in the Middle

Last month, Paramore released their fifth studio album After Laughter and I've been feeling a lot of the tracks lately. Compared to their previous album released back in 2013, After Laughter deals more with the self, dealing with anxiety and depression in everyday life, offering olive branches and rebuilding relationships, and also over-analyzing dead friendships to figure out what exactly dealt the killing blow.

One particular track on the album is titled "Caught in the Middle," and I was hooked from the opening two lyrics to the song. "I can't think of getting old, it only makes me want to die // I can't think of who I was 'cause it just makes me want to cry, cry, cry, cry."

I'm close in age to the lead singer of Paramore, Hayley Williams, who's only two years my senior. The lyrics of the song talk about feeling ashamed of who the writer was when they were younger, but also fearful and unsure of how to proceed into the future, and how they feel caught in the middle.

It's a feeling I'm all to familiar with, and people in my age group are familiar with. Branded and labeled as "millennials," there are dozens of articles written by people proclaiming us as the most lazy, most entitled generation of "special snowflakes," and never a kind word is spared about millennials as an entire generation.

I'm 26 and will be completing my Bachelor's degree just before I turn 27, and I'm feeling anxious about the future and what it will mean. Will I achieve the kind of success that I've been hoping for and desiring for myself and my husband? Will we be able to move somewhere, and have the kind of quality of life that we want, where we can be happy together? Will we be able to start a family together? All of this anxiety ends with me feeling like I need to be sedated.

Part of my anxieties come from feeling as if I've started slower than my counterparts. Several of my friends who graduated a month ago were several years younger than me, and many other friends of mine from my hometown lead successful lives. One is a phenomenal woman who has had many opportunities to travel the world; right now she's working on a project to provide clean water and resources to a village in a foreign country. Several friends have gotten married, moved away, started families. Gotten careers, and achieved a lot in their personal lives.

I wonder if my younger self would even be proud of who I've become as a person. It's easy to look back and say, "I've grown so much since then, as a person, in my ideologies." Whatever the case may be. I can assure you that my political beliefs when I was young and the ones I have now do not align. But going back farther, would my childhood self be proud of adult me?

It's a very metaphysical question, and one that can't be answered simply by anyone. I'm able to find some solace in the achievements I've made in the face of any evidence to the contrary. The suicidal teen who was afraid of his same-sex attraction in a small town in west Texas would probably be shocked to find that I was able to overcome that and marry a wonderful man with whom I have an amazing relationship (and two dogs).

My childhood self might be ecstatic to learn that I'm trying to learn how to write the same stories he loves to read. Even myself from just six years ago might be surprised to find out I'll be completing my Bachelor's degree at Texas Tech, a school he once said he had zero interested in attending. Well, to my 2012-self, I say that the people you love most can have a lot of influence on the decisions you make.

I'm trying not to feel so caught in the middle. I don't want to feel ashamed of the person I was, and I don't want to be scared of what happens in the future (even though the unknown is frightening, pretty much always). The person I was did some pretty cringe-worthy things, but I shouldn't be so hard on myself, because without those experiences compared with what I learned from them, I wouldn't know why they make me feel ashamed in the first place. And if I never learned anything, I wouldn't be a better person than when I was then. I would just be stuck in a bubble, aging but never getting better.

Tonight was a warm summer night here in Lubbock, a little humid because it rained earlier. I can still smell the rain on the air when I go outside, and sometimes there's a light breeze. Those were my favorite kinds of nights when I was a teenager. I'd stay up late, most of the time well until the sun was rising, and I would wish for anything and everything.

A lot of times, I wished that I wasn't gay, or I wished I could be someone else. I wished for excitement in my life, I wished for something better. I wished to be understood, I wished to go places I hadn't seen, and I wished I wasn't afraid of the unknown. I wished for love, for people who understood me, wished that time would slow down for a minute so I could be a kid a little longer.

I still wish for some of those things, like wishing I wasn't afraid of the unknown, or that time would slow down. Sometimes, when I'm feeling bad about myself, I wish I was someone else. But a lot of those wishes have changed. I wish people were better to one another, I wish for happiness and long lives for me and my husband. I wish wherever we move to after this conservative city is amazing and lovely. I wish I could remember moments from the past more clearly.

For now, I'm going to work on my writing and focus on publishing. I owe it to that kid, who loved reading books to escape into a different world, and to the teen who looked hard for a reason not to kill himself, and to the college student who felt like he'd be alone forever. I've achieved a lot, and I will achieve much more if I keep working hard. I've got an amazing supportive husband, friends and family who love me, and every facet of my own past, who hoped for some future that was better than what they had.

Don't I owe it to all of them to try my best?