Feeling Slighted & Feeling Desire

Deciding to Dream in the Face of Disappointment

I’m not sure how much of a stake I place in fate or chance, but it can’t be some cosmic coincidence that I was put on this earth as an older sister. Early in my relationship with my little sisters, I realized that I was well-equipped for the blend of caretaking, playing, and antagonizing that the older sister role requires. I take to leadership easily and am a fan of bossing people around. I’m also sensitive - to a near fault at times - and capable of feeling my sisters’ feelings as young girls often crave others to do. I am observant. As comfortable as I am yapping, I take just as much pleasure in the relief of having someone else take center stage, performing a living room musical or complaining about classmates at the dinner table. 

Having younger sisters who are close to you - in age, in proximity, and emotionally - is not without its many challenges. But one of the most beautiful and validating aspects of it - which I imagine is even more amplified for parents - is watching someone you love experience life for the first time. It’s like showing someone your favorite movie and watching them laugh at the parts they’re supposed to laugh at and cry during the moments that also stir you. Selfishly, it’s reassuring to see my younger sisters get stuck in the unhealthy thought patterns I did at their age, knowing with greater clarity that I wasn’t crazy, just young. It’s charming to see them gravitate to the same music I did at their age, to know that everyone, at sixteen, feels like Lorde wrote “Ribs” specifically for them. And to watch them experience the existential epiphanies that were not, apparently, unique to me, but common to all as they come of age.

The other day, I was having a phone conversation with my middle sister who is in her last teen year. As discussions with my sisters often go, the conversation took sharp pivots, bouncing between the lighthearted and the heavy with brevity. We usually end up debriefing the week’s pop culture high points in between examining more personal, sticky matters. After chatting our way through the latest episode of Love Island USA, my sister took the expected pivot.

“Summer just doesn’t feel the way it did when I was younger,” she said out of the blue, followed by a pause. “I was just, like, always so happy during past summers. And now I don’t feel that as much.”

I pause. In big sisterly fashion, I usually have some kind of response to my sisters’ qualms - something approximating “words of wisdom.” We’re four years apart but that gap is shrinking with time. There’s a big difference between a six-year-old and a ten-year-old, a lesser gap between 19 and 23, and an even smaller one between 40 and 44. The numerical value of four years doesn’t change, of course, but the rift in experience does. Matters begin to level out the further into adulthood you get. After many years of my sister looking up to me, she and I now often hold each other’s gaze eye-to-eye.

“Yeah,” I murmur dumbly, staring into space. “It gets that way. It’s a part of growing up, I guess. I don’t know.” The conversation jumps back to Sabrina Carpenter, or something.

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When I walk to the grocery store in my neighborhood, I have to pass a playground of preschoolers. I curtail my pace as I pass the kids at recess, walking as slowly as possible without seeming creepy. I allow myself a small smile as I watch them swing from the monkey bars and chase each other until their cheeks turn pink. I wonder if preschoolers have always looked this small. Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember that my sisters were once that small, that I was too.

I am happy to be an adult. To have the privilege to grow old and face more complex challenges. To be able to dictate how I spend my time and money. I don’t grieve my girlhood as much as I’m expected to - I’ve been waiting to have this kind of power over my life. As a child, so many decisions were made for me, or made out of convenience. I chose to live my life based on the options and resources I had at my disposal, all of which I could practically hold in the palm of my hand. It’s only in adulthood - when the slate has been wiped cleaner - that I’ve been able to figure out who I am and who I want to be with sharper focus. Making more complicated decisions allows you to consider more complicated questions, all showing you what you truly care about.

Though I don’t long to be a child again, growing up does come with its own small deaths. There comes a time in every young adult’s life when they experience their first peak behind the curtain, their first inclination that Santa Claus might not be real after all. The last two years of my life have been rife with these moments. I’ve always adopted a more realist outlook on things, but the innate, rosy idealism of my youth has been rocked quite a bit. As it turns out, it’s actually difficult to find a stable job that you love to do, especially when you’re young. It’s very challenging to make your dreams come true. The quiet promises of happiness and “success” post-graduation are elusive. Sometimes things don’t work out for people. And, yes, summer will never be exactly as it was when I was younger.

Last month, a similar topic came up in conversation with people around my age at a dinner party. Many of the party attendees were people in their early to mid-twenties, who had just wrapped up grad school or were entering their third or fourth year in the paid workforce. We all exchanged stories - compared scars - of being stuck in underpaid, overworked, and creatively compromised positions, of being victim to the mammoth waves of media layoffs, and of having trouble finding stable, satisfying work.

“I just feel a bit slighted,” somebody interjected. Everybody nodded in solemn agreement, the conversation fizzling out a bit, not out of disinterest, but out of fatigue. There was nothing else to say - “slighted” captured it perfectly.

I considered this as we continued eating warm food we cooked together, on an apartment rooftop with a view of the Manhattan skyline. We were all bubbly in each other’s presence, filling our bellies in the most expensive city in the United States - life surely hadn’t insulted us that much. I played devil’s advocate in my mind. Is it possible to be cheated of a life that was never promised? At least not promised explicitly? I should feel happy with what I have.

Manhattan skyline (blurry), taken from the Williamsburg Bridge in a 1 AM Uber

I am happy with what I have. But it isn’t what I expected. I’ve experienced tiny deaths and there are only bigger ones to come. This rooftop dinner flashes to my mind as I consider how to respond to my sister. Few things in life are explicitly promised, but the pink-tinged outlook of youth makes it feel that way. The confidence built from a supportive community and rewarded achievement make it feel that way. America, television, my parents - they all make it feel that way. It isn’t possible to grieve a life you never lived, but you can surely grieve the expectations.

Today, even uttering my ambitions - specifically my creative ones - in certain circles is met with some guffawing. If not from others, then from myself. If it hasn’t worked out for anyone else, why on Earth would it work out for me? None of us are special in our desire to be exceptional, and we all can’t be the exception. But, a life without a dream, without a horizon to gaze at and dare to one day reach, is a bit flat to me. I live in the moment, I live slowly, but I also want to live passionately. To live dreamily. If it’s childish to want to follow your dreams, to want summer to feel carefree and whimsical as it once did, then perhaps I want to live childishly. There is a balance to be found between reality and fantasy. We should always be grateful for what we have in each moment because nothing is promised. But if I’m not able to dream, how am I - frankly - expected to get through so much of this?

Where I am in my career isn’t where I expected to be when I was small. Summer doesn’t feel the way it once did. It’s easy to accept the feeling of being slighted. But I’m not so ready to let the pie-in-the-sky dreams I once had die so quickly. Indulging yourself in the pleasure of wanting a more fulfilling life isn’t so naive. The earnest desire to live better - for yourself, for your community - is foundational to any kind of change. Even if nothing comes of your dreams, living with a hunger - with a “want” - is better than living without. While it can be the root of many evils, especially when embodied in excess, desire at least makes things a bit more interesting. I’d rather things at least be interesting.

Article inspired by real-life experience and this meme

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