let your craft be an awkward teenager

the ritual of redefining yourself.

consistency has always been the friend that i loved to cater to when she was around and secretly yearned for when she was suddenly distant. it’s a frustrating dynamic, like most situationships, but i’m determined to keep her around long enough to get serious about our partnership. i believe older folks call it “going steady,” ironically fitting this analogy perfectly.

i’ve never been good at failing in public. it’s a weird feeling, knowing that i’m being watched while also believing that i can’t possibly be that important to anyone who notices my creative stops and starts. but whenever i start again, i am welcomed with open arms and immense support from the unlikeliest or unknown sources and reminded that yes, i am being perceived. terrifying, overwhelming, so i stop again. but the life i want and continue to strive for requires me to not remain in the shadows, so i start again once more. it’s a tragic cycle, i know. we artists have never claimed to be sane people and a new narrative is surely not going to start with me. but in this new era, something has to shift, a new normal must come to pass.

in a lot of ways, i have always been someone who appreciated shifting. it’s become a highlighted professional trait in my career [adaptability is a golden transferable skill], but it was more of a survival tactic for my mental health. when i was in high school, living in that hideous mustard-colored room, it was normal for me to spend an entire saturday every few weeks rearranging my space. my mother would walk in and all of my furniture would be pushed to the middle, covered in cut-up magazines pages [to create a new makeshift wallpaper of course] as i figured out my own feng shui—adjusting all the pieces until the energy flowed the way i needed to breathe. i always appreciated her walking in, taking in the chaotic scene, and walking out, leaving me to process in peace.

the palpable urge to shift my surroundings semi-regularly manifested into me embracing the idea of shifting internally when necessary. i learned to adjust who i was perceived to be to achieve the energy i desired. because let me tell you: i was an awkward kid. i didn’t enjoy being in this body and i surely didn’t know how to come out of this shell. i was quiet, hated all of the clothes my mother put me in, and didn’t know who i was if i book wasn’t pressed to my face. but i did have ideas of who i wanted to be.

keyword here being ideas.

as the fiction writer i was, i was very good at creating detailed characters, piecing together backstories and personality traits that made sense for their internal struggles and external stimuli. self-reminder to spend time writing fiction again. worldbuilding is magical and will surely pull my mind out of this hellscape of a world we’re currently existing in. and i did the same to myself, stitching together an idea of who i thought i was or at least, who i imagined myself to be in certain environments. what a weird kid, right? what tween do you know sits around and writes out their ideas of who they are and creates a sense of identity from it? this kid, who had way too much alone time and an imagination too large to be contained by fear.

if you’re a regular to this space, or listened to my podcast, or know me personally, you know this is how my persona “Cook” [she/her] came to be. now known as a phase that lasted a little too long in my opinion and how i address and speak to my inner teen, Cook was an amalgamation of trials and errors in an effort to grow into myself.

before the final form that eventually flourished in college, it took testing a variety of situational variables across two high schools to figure out what made sense. but before the idea of this character even developed, whew—well, i feel sorry for that kid. no sense of Self, no idea how to use my voice, and zero fashion sense (with little to no help from my mother who was hellbent on forcing femininity on me, when all i wanted was to look like a little boy most days). uncomfortable in my skin and even more so in this world, it was all just too awkward and cringe, and even difficult to think about now if i’m being honest.

it took a lot of adjusting, rewriting, and reviewing what worked to grow into a person that i was proud of. and still, that didn’t occur until Cook had faded and moná was running the adult section of this show. i owe a lot to that awkward teen who was just trying to figure things out for herself. she didn’t have a lot of guidance, but she knew how to feng shui the hell out of just about anything, even herself.

it’s one of those traits i honored once upon a time and need to remember the freedom of once again. being awkward and uncoordinated is a part of the process. somehow, life and the pursuit of a creative career—in a world delving increasingly into a love for instant gratification due to the pressures of capitalism forcing our hands—convinced me that it was a sign of failure or moving in the wrong direction. but that simply cannot be. Cook was a successful experiment because i allowed myself to fidget and tweak as the journey went on. until i was able to look myself in the mirror and believe, “yes, i like you. okay, let’s keep going.”

the same mentality can and should be applied to all things—because if you really think about it, most aspects of life and growth are just regenerated high school tropes masquerading as adulthood.

take this newsletter for instance.

this is a blog. no matter how i slice and dice it, it’s no different than when i was typing my little heart away on tumblr. where i wrote my thoughts freely, scrolled for inspiration, discussed important and silly topics with my community, and enjoyed spending my time. this blog is the same as that one, so it’s okay for it to be a bit clunky. here is where i am meant to ramble about my feelings and share findings from around this dying internet. sure it’s not “perfect,” but why should it be? why would i want it to be? it’s a space to figure things out. to dumb ideas and keep dumping, until one day, somewhere amid all the mess and chaos, there’s something shiny that i’m meant to pick up and marvel at, be inspired by, and think, “yeah, this is cool. let’s work this out.”

serendipitously, i was reminded of this concept and the importance of trial and error again when i was listening to the unhinged and immoral podcast with mecca and jamila where they recalled the trial runs of the montgomery bus boycotts. first of all, if you don’t know your history get into it, but to summarize, rosa parks wasn’t the first person to sit down in the whites-only section of the bus and refuse to get up for a white person when asked. in fact, she wasn’t even the second. most people know the story of claudette clovin, the pregnant teenager who preceded rosa, however before her, it was a Black man who did the same. it took multiple attempts, and the right representation for the movement, for the 13-month-long boycott against segregated seating to gain media traction. multiple failed attempts [and these are only the ones we know about] before the right circumstances stuck.

i’m taking this energy, of my ancestors and my inner teen, with me into this next phase of creative output. being awkward, very cringe, and highly uncoordinated is going to happen while i feng shui the hell out of my projects and artistry until something sticks and i feel confident to move on to the next stage.

shifting and adjusting until the energy feels right is a practice. it is ritualistic. it’s freedom to play with the imaginary and allow ideas to come to life on their own terms. but how will they, i ask myself, without the proper attention and care? consistency, practice, ritual—all things my inner teen thrived with. and i, a slightly fearful adult, need to find the unfiltered joy in once again.