Sometimes Better is Everything
I try not to look at my phone first thing in the morning. If I’ve learned anything from internet personality Gabi Abrão of @sighswoon on Instagram, it’s how to wake up.
First, understand you are awake. You can’t open your eyes first thing in the morning and bargain with whether you are awake or not. Awakeness and awareness are not meant to be decisions, and as I enter that state of consciousness from the warm planet that is my bed, contemplations chase each other across the space of my mind.
Should I snooze the alarm? Am I really ready to get up, now? God, I want to go back to sleep.
No, I’m awake. Get up and go do something. The buzz words these days are grounding, spiritual, peaceful, calming, mindful. Make your morning any of those adjectives.
Second, third, fourth, last, whatever, the list goes on. But the step after waking up is to remember you exist, and then do something about it. Stretch, drink water, put on music, stimulate. Make your ritual morning coffee and hold the mug between your hands as you stare out the window, letting the sun hit your face. Rinse the spinach, chop the tomatoes, and whisk the eggs for your breakfast omelette like it’s your last meal. Ideally, it is all so very beautiful, letting the world unfold before you like a miracle.
Why does it feel so unattainable? Scratch that, why do they make it feel so attainable?
I surely can’t be the only one, as an early twenty-something and a sometimes unfortunately avid consumer of social media, on what could best be described as “Routine Tiktok.” Self-care Tiktok, morning routine Tiktok, night routine Tiktok, day-in-the-life Tiktok, what-I-eat-in-a-day Tiktok.
It includes anyone from the likes of celebrities, to influencers and business owners in their high-rises, to young adults with generational wealth in their lofts, to regular teens in their homes or hanging out with friends. I get so much satisfaction out of watching others do their so-called daily tasks, from the mundane to the exciting.
I don’t think I have to make the spiel that nothing on social media is particularly authentic, I think we all know how that dance goes already. In a sphere that is all about craft and curation, the internet is not a space to wax poetic about organic existence.
Sure, sometimes these posts feel a little real, like when I see @lei_go_to_therapy make a quick day-in-the-life where she admits that all she really did that day was wake up, sleep, maybe watch a couple episodes of a TV show. I love those ones, I do. It’s comforting. It’s a little bit like memoir writing, isn’t it? I mean, the most convincing thing about memoir is when the author acknowledges their short-comings, is candid about how things aren’t always what they seem.
And then there are the other types, the ones with ethereal people in ethereal houses with amazing lives and amazing jobs. Trust me, I love @sighswoon, I really do. I think she, and other accounts like hers, do amazing work to help people on their spiritual journeys. I consume her content and it’s always nice to look at, the reminders and digital resting points and bits of poetry amidst the prose. But I can’t help but see her living the life in Hawaii, in a house by seaside, posting videos of waterfalls and hikes and beaches and just not being able to relate.
I don’t have that, most of us don’t have that, and this is not to say people don’t work hard for those things, but it is safe to say that the yearning for the lives of others can harm more than heal.
Influencers and people who make those routine videos, the spiritual guides, the day-in-the-life Tiktoks, they know that those lives are curated. We know that those lives are curated. It’s a very clear exchange between creator and consumer. Social media is a highlight reel, or however the saying goes. It’s an unsaid agreement. That’s crystal clear to most adults on the internet, but this type of content still strives to portray a sense of authenticity even if that isn’t really possible. I don’t want a life that is not my own, I never will.
Man, do they make it feel attainable, though. It gets a little sinister.
Will I still wish I could spend my mornings on a balcony overlooking the sea? Sure. Will I still feel bad when my day is spent waking up, going to Zoom class, going on my phone, and going to sleep just to wake up and do it all again, my brain hammering at me to live my life to the fullest? Absolutely, whatever that means. People say you have the power to change your own life, yeah, yeah. Trust me, I know, let me be cynical and pensive, but that’s not what this piece is about. It’s about the other things.
Why doesn’t it feel as nice as it seems in the videos when the sun hits my face in the morning? Why isn’t the process of making my morning cup of pour-over coffee peaceful and meditative like theirs? Instead my brain just feels a little empty, full of goo and sludge and whatever comes next.
Maybe I just need to meditate, or go on the spiritual journey everyone talks about. Something like that.
For now, I’ll still try to romanticize my life, because when the moments are good, they’re good. It’s about understanding that it all doesn’t have to be that way, that loving and being loved are good enough. I don’t always need to wake up at 5 AM, or do yoga, or meditate, or go on a run, or write in a journal, or be productive like the videos say.
Sometimes your orange tasted really sweet, and you laugh about the sting of the tartness in your cheek. Your hand is cold and your friend holds it and now it’s warm again. The tea soothes your throat and you feel it in your stomach. You trace your eyes across a finger as it points to the banana moon on a clear night. Things feel good, feel better, and it’s everything.
I’ll turn my phone off when it gets to be too much.
Thumbnail image by Petra Collins
