You’re not 17 anymore
An honest year
“And suddenly it’s December,
and you’re not 17 anymore.
And you haven’t been 17 for a very long time,
but sometimes, you need to remind yourself.”
I’m currently 34 years old. Seventeen years ago I was 17.
I was doomscrolling my New Years Eve away on Tik Tok when those words yanked me back to reality. The screen turned off, and eventually I was left staring at my warped reflection in the black mirror of my phone.
Thinking back on the year– my changing familial dynamics, my growth as a writer, the fact that I haven’t been 17 in 17 years– it ended with me bawling my eyes out on the couch.
It felt like a fitting way to end 2025 and begin 2026.
New Beginnings
While I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions, I do set quarterly goals for myself. It’s a way to make sure that my daily actions align with my larger goals. Adulthood has taught me that it is easy to move in your daily life without connections to your larger goals. Quarterly Goals, typically refined in the Spring, are helpful for me to actually do what I say I want to do.
This year I did something new in planning my quarterly goals, which was to do an Annual Review of 2025 before setting them. I did the Review a few days after my Menty B™ on the couch on New Year’s Eve. With that Menty B™ as the backdrop, so much of my goals were centered around a central theme: the need for me to be more honest, to accept the many realities around me, to hold multiple truths.
My desire for more honesty is not because I live a life of lies. This desire stems from how easy it is in our current society to remain ignorant of the honest truth. Daydreaming has turned to doomscrolling. Everything is a meme. My increasing phone addiction led to brain rot, isolation, and an echo chamber of all the things I thought I knew.
I was so disconnected from myself, my body, the truth of the world that I needed a hard reset. A sobering recognition in a world that keeps us under the influence. Of drugs, of comfort, of ignorance.
This desire for more honesty is both personal and political.
In my personal life, it means being more honest about my needs. Being more honest about my physical capacity and limitations during flare ups. It means being more curious about negative feelings, rather than shoving them down because there’s not enough time/energy/desire to go there.
It is also being more honest in the external: the macro and the political. We are a microcosm of our movements. As above, so below. I am committed to looking at the world as it actually is. I’m committed to looking at our country as it is.
The kidnapping of a President of another nation along with his wife, bombing and pillaging a country for its resources, intentional attempted destabilization of foreign governments—
All of this is very American.
Over the weekend, I watched the series “America in Color” by The Smithsonian. The first episode, focused on the 1920’s, had me hooked. I was genuinely surprised by its fairly balanced reporting. What surprised me even more was how candid the series was on America’s reliance on capitalism, and the impact it had in the decades that followed.
As the episode closed, it focused on the construction of the Empire State Building. Though the tallest and most expensive office building of its time, heralded as a triumph to capitalism, it remained primarily empty of tenants for over 20 years.
Why did it remain empty for so long? The honest truth about the American economy during the end of the 1920’s.
Here’s a quote from the end of the episode that could have been written today:
“Nearly 80% of goods are bought on credit. Most Americans have no savings at all. Consumers are stretching themselves thin. And with a runaway bull market, few realize what’s about to come. The skyscrapers crown a hollow economy that is about to spin dangerously out of control… America’s 10 year old party has turned into a hangover for millions.”
A day after watching that episode, I saw this political cartoon in my local newspaper.
This is America. Honestly.
Moving through the world with more honesty isn’t some moral litmus test. It is an act of survival to see my life more clearly and to see the world for what it is.
Here are two articles on the America’s aggression towards Venezuela that have been helpful for me:
Trump kidnaps Venezuela’s president to steal the country’s oil - Aaron Mate
Screenings of BE HERE NOW
In October, I had the honor of screening BE HERE NOW twice in Connecticut.
The first screening was at Kindred Thoughts Bookstore. The questions asked during the screening will stay with me.
The second screening was at Fairfield University. Special thank you to Sonya Huber for coordinating this special event.
You can read more of Sonya’s work below:
Thanks for being along for the ride and subscribing to my digital archive and public journal, Curiously Human. If this entry resonated with you or helped you to feel a little less alone, please share my Substack by re-posting it on your feed or sending it to someone you know. This allows me to grow Curiously Human, which in turn allows my art to blossom.
Kenyatta ✨