The Haves and Have Nots Way of Thinking

When looking back on 2022, there’s a lot that I’m proud of. I went to almost 30 live events and moved ever closer to achieving my bachelor’s degree. If you chronicle my experiences through The Memory Tourist, one would stand to believe that this was a fantastic year for me. Overall, I come out with one of the happiest, most accomplished years I’ve had since 2019. I’ve evolved as a person and have greater confidence in myself. Everything is moving in the right direction, and yet… there’s one thing that I struggle with. Try as I might to be proud of myself, I end up with a quiet disappointment.

Throughout my life, I have had difficulty with what I call “hierarchy thinking.” Some would call it “Oppression Olympics,” where there is an order to how much concern you give a conflict based on how bad it is. Sure, in a general sense this is a good idea as a burning forest is more serious than a burning house, but to apply it to mental health things become difficult. The human brain is much more fragile and potentially irreplaceable if not properly stored. To neglect it is to risk changing a physiognomy and social standing. Even then, it becomes so easy to think that your burning house can’t compare to someone’s burning forest.

To provide some clearer examples. I am someone whose main concern is being an active student and supporting my family where I can. While I have moved into finding more independent goals, there are still expectations that I am available a certain amount of time per week to babysit and help with various chores. Compare that to someone who has a 9-to-5 job or has physical ailments that hold them back from certain goals. Even handling my nieces and entertaining/feeding them comes with time consumption that’s forced my family at different points to sacrifice personal goals. Given other constraints that rise from contemporary issues (such as the passing of my grandparents), it’s easy to quickly think that my demands are low. After all, I theoretically just need a textbook and you can put me anywhere.

With this in mind, I am low in hierarchical thinking. I haven’t “suffered” enough for priority status. There’s some truth that I actually have it very well compared to others, but again that’s suggesting that there’s a ranking to where everyone’s misery lies. There’s some toxicity to this way of thinking, and yet I found it branching out into other corners of my identity this past year. This isn’t so much on a familial level, but in how I see myself socially. For as much as I achieved, there’s a feeling of inadequacy that’s hard to escape.

Maybe it’s a side effect of being self-conscious and anxious every time somebody talks to me. I want to present my best self, but I always get the sense I’m not projecting my best self. Maybe my voice is too nasally or the autistic traits would cause me to react too slowly or say something inherently “disappointing” to them. Will the lack of eye contact annoy them and cause them to never talk to me again? Given that I’ve always struggled with body image, I always have the sense that I look stupid so acting that way is a practical extension. I also feel that because I look the way I do, I’m not exactly the type of person people want to talk to. I’m not conventionally attractive. In media, I’m the buffoon, someone who probably is the protagonist of a John Kennedy O’Toole book. As much as I love the film community, I do worry about coming across as too obsessive because I feel like fat people with glasses is a trope with a toxic history due to some noteworthy arrogant types. Given that I’m asexual, the fear of being accused of “you’re only ace because nobody will fuck you” is another harmful rhetoric that causes me to hide so much.

Obviously, these struggles have existed for longer than 2022, but they’ve been recontextualized to some degree now. This year was the first time that I felt myself starting to readjust socially to life outside of quarantine. Even through the end of 2021, I was feeling those mental roadblocks I developed in quarantine. I had missed the call and response nature of conversation, so I feel like they were as substantial. Now I have more confidence and willingness to be more outgoing, or at least go somewhere without fear of a deadly virus swallowing me whole (and not just because I finally contracted COVID-19 back in September). I’m still awkward, but it's less because I react improperly to certain cues.

So what does this have to be with “the haves” and “the have nots” way of thinking? I think that it’s because of how much soul searching I did in 2021 that I have come to see the world in more open ways. I’m more likely to be self-aware and admire things that I had missed. Part of it is simply being queer, but it’s also from growing older and feeling like I’m growing disconnected from the world around me. As much as I love the staff and students of CSULB, there is something disconcerting about being around eight years older than my guessed age of “older students” and a Millennial taught by Generation X teachers. The mutual respect is there, but I do wonder if I come across as slow because I’m here and not a graduate. With this said, being surrounded by young students also means I feel like my peer group has disappeared and no longer lives in town. I know that’s not true, but they’re all too busy to congregate.

I feel like a failure compared to them. I should be done with school. I should have a family and child. Hell, I should have a local best-selling novel and appear on panels. Maybe I live in an apartment off on my own and emerge to be reminded of the people who love me. My version of The American Dream is far more vanilla than what’s been sold to me. It’s not necessarily a financial goal but one of stability and happiness, that I will die feeling like I achieved things that leave a positive mark on this earth.

And yet, being surrounded by people either fresh out of high school or in the throes of a superior intellectual prowess at a much younger age once again intimidates me. I assume they’ll go farther. They’ll be on The Dean’s List on the way to an internship with some big wigs. They’ll read “Beowulf” and understand what the hell is going on. Meanwhile, I will be there for the experience and feel like a failure just because I’m the only one I see benefitting from being there. I’ll graduate and nobody will clap as I walk across the stage. Like, nobody I’ve met in the past three years will care.

Then there’s the larger identity. It’s the fear of missing my best years of being queer because I chose to be an insufferable contrarian instead. I get too hung up on “the have nots” that I used to have, of friendships gone and even certain career accessibility that I screwed up. The irony is tragic, to know that I want a queer platonic relationship but have a feeling like there’s nobody my age who thinks like I do. I’m thrilled with seeing people being more gay, more willing to dress and present with such confidence. I love that for them and am happy when I’m in the wild and see those flag pins that let me know they mean things to other people. With that said, I’m still the old person who is uncool for being there. I’m Steve Buscemi in that meme. Why do I feel closed off from somebody standing right in front of me?

I want to be able to express myself with confidence, and yet I also feel like I’m at an age where we’re supposed to be serious. I’ve failed all of it, where I don’t even have a good resume to tell someone when they ask what I do. It’s caused me to resent being a freelancer even as I admire being in a Twitter community full of people with something much more substantial than me to say. I’m jealous that they found success while I’ve kept hitting roadblocks for 15 years.

Also, because I have been questioning gender more, I have been strangely open to beauty more. I think it’s caused me to look at someone’s dress and be taken aback by its expression or how the make-up is so rich with personality. How does one even do hair? Again, I feel self-conscious only now realizing the potential of the world around me, but there’s intimidation to this beauty in part because I feel like I’ll never achieve it. There’s a whole trial and error phase I’d probably be too old to experience and even more social struggles that I don’t think I’m mentally capable of handling. It makes me admire them more for putting up with so much nonsense just to be themselves. Even then, I unfortunately look beyond the artifice and see the rigidity of their jawline, the buoyancy of their cheeks, or even the hips and smoothness of the stomach. How could I even achieve half of that? 

Again, I think it’s some misplaced understanding of where “being desired” comes from. Subconsciously, I just want someone who will love me. I want to be concerned about their day to day and be happy when they succeed at work. I want them to hug me and let me know the world will be okay. For some reason, I’ve bought more into the idea that beautiful people will “have” it while I “have not.” I keep hoping I’m wrong, but alas I look at a beautiful person and think they’ve got it even if I don’t know anything other than the direction they were walking.

Which is the thing. I don’t know if hierarchical thinking has caused me to feel so removed from feeling deserving of these things. Sure, there’s something to be said about working my hardest to be the best student I can be. I'm proud of even trying. However, I think I worry too much about being seen as different from others that it impacts my enjoyment of it. I haven’t gotten to a level of success where I can brag to strangers. I’m not charismatic enough to be a leader.

And yet, I did so much that I’m proud of. I still think I’m a good writer who has a unique perspective of the world. I’ve taken pictures of myself and more often than not I think I look average. Even as I struggle to look into mirrors, the constructed image of myself has moments where I realize how much is in my head. Maybe I could work on the rest of myself, but for now, I see the few people who do like pictures of me and realize that I am not hopeless. Maybe I hate how round my face is or that I have an unflattering smile, that my eyes look too caved in without glasses. I should remember that that’s not every picture. Nobody is meant to look perfect all of the time.

Coming out of 2022, I think that I’ve spent too much time overthinking about “the have nots.” From what I can guess, it’s maybe impacted my mental health a little too much and held me back from achieving more self-confidence. In fact, it’s often led me to darker headspace (which comes with its own hierarchy of “I’m not victim enough” that I hope to escape). I don’t know that I can fully free myself from certain feelings of inadequacy, but I can try.

Maybe I’ll look at what bothers me and ask why it does. Maybe I’ll take some notes and think about what these things mean to me. I’ll work on what I can, such as doing better exercises so I can at least try to have a better body image. I’ll accept what I can’t change and find small ways to embrace my individuality. Some of these things are malleable, others inevitable. I need to find those lines and make 2023 the year where I’m less hung up on “the haves” and “the have nots” way of thinking. Everyone probably has that binary stuck in their head somewhere. They just happen to have what I have not. I need to find ways to be less jealous, to be more happy with myself. If I can do that, then this will be a great year ahead.