EMERGING 🌋🌷

do you ever feel like the "grown-ups" in your life don't have their shit together, so why should you?

i mean, i am 23. though i am in a stage called, "emerging adult," which I started to learn about over the past two years to now. it's a stage between youth and older adult basically. like 18–25 years old.

so yeah, i am still emerging.

and i know, technically, we always are. and technically, "emerging adult" is something we, as humans, sort of defined ourselves with. and i know there is so much grayness in the matter of our lives.

also, i do know for myself, in this mainstream, colonial society in which i am entwined and weaving my own path through – whether I want to be in the mainstream of colonial society or not – does hold this part of life. maybe all societies do.

...at the same time...i see grown-ass people doing the same things i do. causing their own problems as we try to connect and communicate and work together. i see they don't want to work with me, even if I want to. i see that they don't want to listen to my thoughts sometimes, even when my thoughts are meant to be treated equally and listened to equally within our native culture. i can feel that they are just as scared about screwing up and losing their means of work – if not more (which most likely, they are, since i am young and have parents to move back with, without anything really shackling me down).

i am confused. i am confused not by them "emerging" as well. i am confused as to why, within even our own indigenous communities, we feel like we have to act like we are not ALWAYS emerging.

why i am treated better when i act like i am on the same speed and level ( like there is a speed and level )

or act like i am not too old or not too young for them to hang around

act like i aaaaaaaaaaammmmm 23, AN ADULT, but also, still a kid who needs their help and who needs to look up to them and just copy them, even though EVERY DAY WE ARE JUST ACTING LIKE WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE DOING UNTIL WE FIGURE IT OUT. mostly in mainstream, colonized, public spaces.

i hear this line over and over from "emerged" adults. in real life and on tv. most recently, again, from April Ludgate in an episode of Parks and Recreation.

"I'm going to tell you a secret about everyone else's job: no one knows what they're doing. Deep down everyone is just faking it until they figure it out. And you will too, because you are awesome and everyone else sucks."

now i don't think that everyone sucks but the point is, yeah. settings with jobs can really suck sometimes. it can be hard to figure out, especially when you're a student and also a worker and also someone's kid and also a community relative and also a student gov president and also . . . it goes on and on and on - because - to another person, you are something else and to me I Am ME i don't know who i am all the time because i am always emerging .

and thinking about people acting like they know what they are doing when they do not as they try to survive within spaces that we cannot help being connected to a colonial effected society when we are trying to stay connected and up to date with everybody's individual systems linked together in our massive web . . .

i get that we are trying to survive. and i know that i don't get what it's like to be you. i know that i DO NOT have children to take care of. i do not have 40 years of experience in life or 20 years of experience working jobs or A job. HOWEVER, I am also emerging , just like you , with a complicated system we are a part of as we may feel helpless as we uphold colonial powers and heirarchies we can't help accidentally build fear around and build within our fears of others. I hear you

i am emerging , just like you , amidst. amidst climate crises I am feeling TERRIFIED ABOUT. terrified to even think of taking care of kids within.

terrified to want something.

want to dance in. to be seen in, because i am scared i won't be able to emerge within this space.

i am emerging too. and i am feeling terrified. And YES, I AM YOUNG. the point is, there is not a hierarchy. there is not even time if we think about it. we're being here. you and me. each of us. human and plant and tree and water and dirt and worms and squirrels and prairie dogs and dogs and cats and lions and tigers and bears and people and fish and all of us. each of us.

my relative. i really love you. sometimes, i feel so pissed we're all so afraid of being trapped in this system, being judged and merged into others and not emerged on our own, forgetting that we can and do emerge again and again, endlessly, even after we die and are born,

we do emerge.

i just want to be with you when I do, and whenever you do. again and again.

so, i feel heartbroken, when i don't.

i feel angry...when we don't.

i feel stupid for believing and then not.

in just being.

but that's not something i have to believe in. it just is.

anyways. this sounds cringey as i write it right now....cuz i have the flu or something (and a headache from the air quality, funny enough, as i edit during summer)

i am pissed off that we are wasting time not being together, when we just want to be right next to you. (and that's not a typo)

love, kesaeh