shedding old skin

for those that feel like they’ve lost their path.

I miss the 18 year old version of myself.

The bumbling, slightly awkward, recklessly confident, and optimistic version of myself.

I’m sure she’s in there somewhere.

I want to be someone that 13 year old me would be proud of, and in an external sense, I think younger me would be ecstatic to find out the person I seem to be on the outside. And yet, at 22, the weight of uncertainty bears on me like a deadweight I’m forced to carry every day. Uncertainty, not just about my future, but of who I am as a person - my values, preferences, desires, dreams.

I feel like I am at a weird precipice in my life where I am terrified to take a step forward, but time is flowing through me and I have to take a step, in any direction. Lest I fall behind. In my head I know that “falling behind” is a fallacy - everyone is on their own journey and there is no guidebook to how you should live your life. And yet, it’s such a foreign feeling, to be launched into a world where all of my peers close in age are doing wildly different things in different parts of the world, when just a few months prior we were all experiencing more or less the same lifestyle for the past 4 years. I’m terrified to be in my 20s but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m in my 20s. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m somehow doing something every day - at least that’s what the passage of time seems to tell me. I float between the same dulled emotions of nostalgia, melancholy, and grief for my life before I grew up. Does that make sense? It doesn’t have to. It doesn’t even really make sense to me.

In less than 2 weeks I will be on a 26 hour journey to Koh Samui, Thailand, to begin my 4 month stint in Asia. No one seems to remember where I’m going or for how long. It will be my first time truly solo-traveling, and it still hasn’t really hit me that I’m going to be away from home for so long. I am severely underprepared. I haven’t even booked my flight home, and the only thing I’ve bought in preparation is a Trtl travel neck pillow that I saw on Tiktok a couple days ago. I haven’t even finished applying for my visa to Vietnam - why do I keep putting it off?! I don’t know. They denied it twice already.

A couple days ago, I started spiraling after going down a rabbit hole of content strategy advice for the social media “rebrand” I am trying to put in motion for my channels. After taking down a slew of tips in my Notes app from self-proclaimed social media coaches, I sat down with a fresh pad of paper and wrote “Dobochobo’s 2024 Rebrand” with bright purple and green Crayola markers. I flipped to a blank page and suddenly felt the same empty dread I faced when starting any of my college papers. My mind was as blank as the piece of paper in front of me.

One of the social media coaches I had taken notes from said that a good question to ask yourself when creating the foundation of your brand is: “If you were to be invited onto a podcast, how would you want them to describe you, and what would you want to talk about?”

I thought long and hard about this question. Various images of future Deborah flashed through my mind. Me in a kitchen, sharing recipes or whipping up cafe worthy drinks. Traveling the world and showcasing hidden gems. At beauty events, fashion shows. And none of it felt quite right. I thought about how easy it was for me to answer this question just a year ago. Something along the lines of a college student with a passion for sharing their life and interests in a romanticized way. I would talk about the difficulties of balancing my classwork with editing, about making friends, finding internships. I began to realize just how integral the title of “student” was to my identity, and I didn’t really know who I was without that label. Being a student is all I’d ever known for the past 15 years, and suddenly I was left to face the abyss that is the rest of my life.

It was almost midnight at this point, and I accepted the fact that I wasn’t getting anywhere with my potential podcast answer. Aimlessly looking around my room, a little note caught my attention. It was a note that had been taped to my bookshelf for the past four years, and I peeled it off to examine it closer.

I CAN DO IT.

I’M GOING TO WORK HARD, NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES.

I CAN MAKE THIS LIFE FOR MYSELF.

Signed with my signature and dated as November 7th, 2020.

A little bit vague. Very dramatic.

i was really into manifestations at 18

As I read this note back to myself, I felt a sinking in my gut. Where had this version of myself gone? Despite having achieved everything I had ever wanted, I felt more lost than ever before.

I was 18 years old when I wrote this promise to myself, and I wrote it when I had just hit 100 subscribers on Youtube. And back then, I wrote it because I was so determined to become a successful content creator, a successful Youtuber specifically, and I just had this burning fire in me after I hit 100 subscribers. Deep down I knew I was going to make it, and I was willing to fight for it. Whenever I felt like giving up, whenever I hit another milestone, any time I felt like I needed a reminder of where I started, I would look at this little note that I kept taped to my bookshelf next to my desk. I have never shared this note with anyone. It was purely for myself, a silly reminder of my earnest beginnings. So why now?

Maybe it’s because I just graduated college. Maybe it’s because I just turned 22. Maybe it’s because I moved back home, and I’m reminded of how much I’ve changed and grown since starting my Youtube channel in my childhood bedroom. I looked at this note that I had written to myself four years ago, and I realized that I really missed this version of myself. The one who was recklessly confident and so sure of myself to the point where I truly believed I could do anything I put my mind to. The type of delusional confidence that only an 18 year old with no real life experience can have. I had nothing to lose back then, and I missed the version of myself whose vision was so clear, who knew exactly what she wanted.

And four years later, with over 500,000 subscribers, I was back in my childhood bedroom and struck with the reality that even though I had “made it” and achieved things I could have only dreamed of, I still felt inadequate.

And to be honest, I feel embarrassed admitting this.

I got what I wanted. Now what?

One of the reasons I was so drawn to Substack was because I felt like I could truly start over. It was a blank canvas for me to create a new audience, to let loose my thoughts that I shied from sharing on my larger platforms where there are too many eyes, too many people I know. There wasn’t any evidence of who I was, and I could reinvent myself any way I chose. It’s a foolish thing to admit but I felt like I could be anonymous again. The way I felt when no one knew I had a Youtube channel and I could post whatever I wanted because no one cared.

I realize I am being really pessimistic right now. And I probably sound like an ungrateful Jerk™️. I used to think I wasn’t allowed to feel negatively about my success because there are so many others that would do anything to be in my position right now. But something I’ve learned, especially this year, is that life is a lot more ambiguous and not as black and white as you think. There are an infinite number of truths to this world, and part of growing up is learning to make space for these truths to coexist, even when they might have tension with each other.

The fact is, I am a different person than I was at 18. And thank God for that. But that version of myself is still within me. The uncertainty that I feel about life is SO normal. I’m entering a new chapter of my life, and whether I want to or not, my old skin is shedding. Growing pains, if you will. And life is going to go a lot more smoothly if I learn to accept it and ride the wave.

xx

I am posting this the day I wrote it with minimal editing because I’m trying to practice anti-perfectionism, so apologies if it isn’t very polished or elegant. :)

This substack was also inspired by a Tiktok I posted the other day, and the overwhelming amount of kind responses I got. The vulnerability hangover was real but I’m so glad I made it.

until next time,

deborah ♡