i am so tired of reinvention
a thought that often crosses my mind, usually when I’m horizontal on my bed with one eye sinking into the folds of my unmade sheets, is that I’m so f**king tired of reinvention.
in and amongst the mess of my unclean apartment, stuff just gathers dust. the stuff that I’ve bought in a frenzy after yet another existential meltdown, triggered by mindless scrolling on yet another social media app that does nothing for my mounting feelings of worthlessness in a digital world dictated by ‘how I lost 10 kilos and ‘how I transformed my life in 2 months – and how you can too!’.
a red-light therapy mask sits at the bottom of one of my bathroom drawers, countless skincare products jumbled on top of it – purchased after I became convinced that glass skin was a standard and not a byproduct of filters and retouching.
a diffuser sits unused on my tv console, throwing paralysing shadows across my living room in the crinkled hours of 3am. this particular impulse buy, the result of a bombardment of short-form wellness videos convincing me that peace could be bottled, plugged in, and released on command.
a jade guasha face roller is sitting at the bottom of a dish on my bathroom sink, slowly collecting the oils of my other skincare products, dust sticking to its once pristine surface that promised to drain away the puffiness of my ‘cortisol face’- a diagnosis gifted to me by someone with an affiliate link.
each product, each buy, a reflection of every personality I became obsessed with mirroring. each falling into disuse after increasingly short periods once the next personality ideal reigns supreme.
reinventing yourself used to signal a fresh start, a new opportunity, a chance at redemption. but now, I think as I mindlessly scroll searching for my next obsession, it’s lost all meaning as we continuously change our minds, each day chasing a shinier start but never really sticking to it.
Image credit: Chibli xx via Dupe
even while writing this, I get distracted hunched over the glowing light of my laptop, scrolling through the endless parade of videos on my screen ‘coaching’ me through how to get a flat tummy. I don’t catch myself until I’m 20 minutes into the scroll, nose inches away from the screen, contemplating buying someone’s 10 step guide to avoiding inflammatory foods.
I keep chasing new versions of myself, adding to cart, abandoning, repeating- all while telling myself it’s self-improvement. honestly, I think the real tragedy is that I’m stuck in place, with this strange illusion of moving forwards, yet never really budging.
but maybe that’s the point. Maybe progress isn’t about a new personality, a new product, a new ritual. Maybe it’s about noticing the pattern, stepping back, and letting some things simply be. The jade gua sha can gather dust, the diffuser can stay unplugged, the red-light mask can sit quietly in its drawer.
And that’s fine.
