Unfitting

Sobre permanecer em uma vida que não lhe cabe

For quite a while I’ve been feeling as if trapped in and by my own life. The way I’ve established its foundation, my routines and structures. They no longer bring me safety or comfort; they constraint me.

I’m not one to like changes, but I truly feel like I desperately need some. And I want them. I want to change the things that no longer serve me. I want to get rid of bad habits. Move out of this small single room apartment that, no matter what I do to make it cozy, remains cold, impersonal, and is where I’ve cried so many times at night when some random noise on the street outside woke me up in panic. Be closer to the people I love. Find time to see my best friends more often. Stop isolating myself whenever I sense that there is something “wrong”. Stop drinking so much coffee as a way to suppress my basic needs and keep me functional.

At the same time, I objectively look at my life and think: well I do have a lot of blessings I should be grateful for, I have a loving partner, amazing friends, a caring family (at least the ones I keep close), two cute little grandma dogs who despite some health issues are doing well for their age…

…also I am young, nearly finishing my bachelor’s degree at 23, and after that will finally be able to start in the field that I’ve always wanted and, maybe someday, start the legal aid initiative for refugees I thought of last year…

…so why can I simply not shake off this feeling of inadequacy, of no longer belonging, of dissatisfaction?

Maybe it’s because the way I shaped my life in the past few years still follows the expectations I set for my adult life at 14. Cuz yeah, it was 14yo Vitória who wanted to live alone in her own apartment more than anything in the world. It was her who didn’t care about keeping friends close as much as she did about overworking herself to meet expectations she had set for herself but that no one else would give a single fuck if she didn’t. It was her who was literally nicknamed the “horse” in seventh grade for being unapologetically rude to anyone who would cross her way and then complain that no one wanted to be her friend. It was her who was a Swiftie to her heart (and now is very upset at the dark turn she took from “fuck the patriarchy” to…).

And, I mean, I don’t judge her. She did what she could with the means she had.

I just don’t think she should still be the one to give the final verdict on my choices.

And yea, nearly-23yo Vitória still doesn’t quite know what she wants for her life. But I still have quite some lifespan to try and figure it out :)

I should go back to writing my thesis. Still don’t quite know what I will turn this Substack into. Might delete all these rants and go back to writing trilingual individual articles once my thesis is done. I’ll figure it out. Or not. Bear with me, please.

xoxo

The purple glasses girl