Hey, its an update! But I didnt actually write this one. But you should still be excited. Because its actually better than the drivel I churn out. Now, Im not going to make a habit out of posting other peoples stuff here, so dont send me the essay you wrote about your feelings on life or the sate of the world. Because I think we all know that I dont care. But, that being said, I wanted to post something this week that my good friend Lauren Morelli wrote awhile back for Vanity Fair's writing contest. The topic was something to the effect of "what's on the minds of America's youths". The results came out this week and her entry didnt win, probably because it was actually written by a member of America's youth (the three winners were all in their 30s. Yet another reason why you shouldnt let Graydon Carter judge writing.). Anyway, Ive had a copy of her essay on my hard drive foir a while and now that it wont be published by Vanity Fair I would hate to see her effort go for naught and her work go unread. And so I present it unto you. Enjoy.
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Stained Concrete
I had a panic attack this morning. I was on the subway, on my way to work, and it just happened. It started in my heart-- a twinge of disquiet-- and quickly spread towards my lungs and knees. No amount of deep breathing stopped the nausea from creeping up my neck. I began contemplating the reality of puking in a subway car, of being the person that my rush-hour companions would tell their husbands and friends about over dinner. “You won’t believe what happened on the subway this morning…” Or, perhaps worse, I will pass out onto the germ-ridden floor without anyone to protect me from the rush hour cattle call. I will be left, forgotten, trampled.
The ultimate miracle occurs. The car doors slam open and a voice of static sighs “66th Street- Lincoln Center.” The rush of victory floods my pores. I will make it to street level sans vomit!
This has become my public transportation ritual, this self-induced panicked frenzy. Every backpack carries a package of suspicion, each bump and delay in the ride speeds my pulse.
I had lived in New York City for exactly two weeks before two buildings came falling from the sky. I was eighteen-years-old, a legal adult who thought she was the pinnacle of maturity and was actually only a child. A banner was hung that read “We will never forget.” Four years later I still get chills every time the shadow of a plane covers me.
It was 1999 and I was sixteen. America watched in horror as two students killed twelve of their classmates and one teacher. Suddenly parents understood the magnitude of what their children endured everyday at school. We were so tortured, so abused by our peers, that we could be driven to murder. We were capable of hate. For teenagers across the country, alienation was no longer about the separatism that our parents’ generation had fought against. It was about money, clothes, and cliques. And you could die for choosing the wrong ones…or at least want to die. Parents clawed at the air, hoping to catch something, anything to blame. Music and videogames were offered as the obligatory sacrifice. Things are easier to accept if there’s a reason for it.
Perhaps we would be a different generation if we could turn our cheeks against the abhorrence at school and look outward instead, toward a common goal or promise held just out of reach. Instead though, I look out the window and face bombs and men being dragged behind trucks. I watch fellow Americans throw around hatred as if it were a favorite pastime. “Nigger.” “Faggot.” “Cunt.” These words are spat off tongues and left to pollute the air around my head. They fall like concrete onto the street and leave dark red stains that I will walk on tomorrow and the next day.
In our short lives we have already learned so much. We know that being with loved ones is more important to us than taking to the streets. We have taught ourselves to cling desperately to our families. We hold our friends close. And it’s not that we are selfish. It’s just that we honor every day as if it will be our last. Because you never know when a plane might land in a skyscraper. Or when a bomb will go off during your morning commute. Or if one of your classmates will bring a sawed-off shotgun to your 4th period class. In the 21st Century, you just never know.
We are not without hope. We celebrate individual triumphs instead of generational victories. We throw ourselves into SAT tests and advanced degrees with an all-encompassing ferociousness. And by god, we have succeeded. We play sports, pluck violins, speak five languages, and volunteer when we have time. We apply for jobs that will pay us less than a living wage but will make a difference to someone instead of making six-figures in corporate America. We work hard. We believe in ourselves.
What we don’t believe in is our immortality. We know first hand that you are no longer safe, not even in the great impervious land of America. We are vulnerable and tired of pretending otherwise. We know that no amount of protesting will stop a bomb stuffed with hate from exploding. And we are too smart to think that we will be the ones to stop a war, which doesn’t mean that we don’t have opinions about it.
The world that I grew up in doesn’t resemble the war-torn yet hope-infused environment of the 1960s. We are the reality generation. As a pre-teen, my mother forbade me from watching MTV. This, of course, goaded me into secret soirées in my father’s den where I could hide away with the VJs. It was during these stolen, sinful half-hour increments that I first met Julie, Kevin, Becky, Eric, Andre, Heather, and Norman. Known to some as the first cast of The Real World, I was lucky enough to count them as close, personal pretend friends. I was a decade old at the time and I could feel the immediate “longing-to-be-18” seep into my consciousness. If only I could dance like Julie and be self-important like Becky and get to flirt with Eric! The glamour! The fights! The unbearable reality of it all!
Now in its 16th season, the show continues to provide a much-needed escape for teenagers across the country. How far the distance is between The Real World and the real world, and how much we adore those thirty minutes that masquerade as real life. When it is all too much and we find ourselves becoming overwhelmed, we turn on MTV and wrap ourselves in the unreal Real World characters. We frolic in their perfect bodies and shocking behavior. We cavort with fake reality because real reality is just unbearable sometimes. We have found an unauthentic actuality, a method of escape from our actual hyper-reality. Why seek out the minimal war coverage when you can bask in the onslaught of celebrity news? Why listen to the violence outside when you can drown it out with videogame gunshots? Why should we deal with the pain when there is a constant morphine drip to soothe the sting?
I hadn’t heard about the bombings until I got to work. Reading the news, I could feel the blood fall through my body, spilling out through my palms and the bottoms of my feet. I felt weightless, open, quiet. I scoured the BBC website obsessively for the next few days, searching for answers, for a reason, just as the parents of America had six years before. And then I read the sentence that would irrevocably steal my youth. “This is our 9/11.” People shouted it: journalists, pedestrians, politicians. Anger filled the places in me that had felt so empty for days. How dare they? How dare they compare their loss to ours and assume to know what that day was for us? And then I realized it. The world was turning against itself, and I was at the front of the angry mob. My instinct had been to rank these horrific attacks—how dare I? Reality swept over me, as it never had before.
Please allow us our few indulgences. And understand that just because we are doing things differently, doing things our way, does not mean that we aren’t doing. Our generation is mourning the loss of a childhood. We lost our naiveté that day in September, so have patience with us. We do care. And we are worried. We aren’t indifferent. We aren’t lazy and self-absorbed. We are scared as hell. We’re just too caught up in our fear and panic attacks to mobilize right now. In the meantime, we will spend our evenings with friends and our weekends with family. We will take advantage of the daylight to work as hard as we are able and take pride in our effort. We will revel in every day. And we think you should too. It might do you some good.
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(Me again)
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week
1.) The World Cup
2.) Being anti-text messaging
3.) Sam Adams
3 & 1/2.) "Baby Got Back" (cover) - Jonathan Coulton
Thought of the week:
"O gentlemen, the time of life is short;
To spend that shortness basely were too long"
-Big Willy
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