On Monday morning, I drove from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the great suburbs of New York, which was at least a 6-hour road trip, but turned out to be closer to 7.5 the way I did it. And I was all by my lonesome. If you know anything about the highways that run across Pennsylvania, you know they’re pretty fucking boring. So naturally I had a lot of time to think about every decision I have ever made and sentence I have said, and figured writing this all down would be a great way to relive that drive.
Starting off strong, with the obvious and most frequent thought–
“Is the smell of burning rubber coming from my car?” (There were probably 4 semi-trucks in my eyeline at all points during the trip).
“Will I ever find love in my life or am I just destined to die alone? Would it be that bad….? If I’ve made it this far…”
“Okay if the car starts smoking, I’m going to pull off onto the shoulder. Naturally, start recording a video on my phone, then reach back into the backseat and grab my bag and my puffer jacket. Then run to open the trunk, grab my suitcase, and start hauling my ass away from the car.”
“Ooh there’s a McDonald’s coming up, that could be good or I could try and hold out for a Sheetz.”
“Why don’t they have street lamps on 70 MPH highway that runs through the middle of nowhere?”
Then to distract myself from the lack of sunlight and intrusive thoughts, I started to talk through some bigger existential crises. Putting myself back into therapy, and trying to get to the root cause of some of my issues and insecurities.
So I started thinking about why I feel so insecure about myself and everything I do– you know, as one does. (This was also the point where I started talking out loud and role-playing being both the patient and the therapist)
An unintentional callback to my previous post, I think a big part of my lack of self-confidence comes from spending so much time on my phone. Because I spend so much time scrolling, I’m doing a disservice to myself in multiple different ways, and dulling myself as a person.
When I spend my time scrolling, I’m constantly comparing myself to the people and lives I’m watching, making me feel insecure in my person and my own life, and giving me false ideas of who I am, what I like, and what I want. Years ago, before I was ever watching TikTok, I had my own sense of personal style, I knew what I liked to wear and the stores I liked to shop at. Today, I feel insecure that I don’t shop at the most trendy stores like Princess Polly, or Edikted just like everybody else on my for you page does– which is SO dumb! I don’t like that style of clothes, and they don’t look good on me, so why do I feel like I’m less than, or not good enough because of my opinions?!
I’m sick of being boring. Scrolling is so boring. Scrolling is not a hobby, but I do it so much that it takes away my time from doing hobbies or things that I enjoy, effectively making me a boring person and just dulling myself. But think about it, I would never want to tell somebody that I spent four hours of my day scrolling, but I would love to tell everybody that I spent four hours of my day crafting, or reading, or sewing, or really doing any form of hobby.
Having this conversation with myself made me so much more aware of how much of an issue this is for me, and how much I want to work on getting past this. It’s 2025, I’m turning 23 this year, and it’s time I stop complaining about not feeling confident, and actually take the steps to feeling more confident. I know what I have to do, but I just haven’t gotten myself to take the steps to do it.
I will say, that starting this blog, and leaning more into writing has been such a great help, even if I’m only doing it for a few hours a week– I already feel more in touch with myself and feel better about how I’m spending my time.
So that being said, expect to be hearing more from me in the foreseeable future. And if you don’t here from me, you’ll know I’m spending my time lurking on TikTok. Send help when that happens.
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