Unbecoming of Our Age

“In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between them, there are doors.”

—William Blake

Please linger
near the
door uncomfortably
instead of
just leaving.

—Mikko Harvey

In staying on track

When the door closed on high school, all I wanted was to disappear, and I felt like I could. I’d become a shell of myself, passively going through the motions. I was at TMU in September—the Undeclared Arts program—the one people go into when they are just following expectations but have no clue what they’re doing nor what they actually want to do. I thought I’d choose a career and live a life that just let me be productive, whatever that meant.

(I think to me it meant putting myself last.)

I thought I would just get it over with, that I could hold my feelings in, that it would be easy to not think of myself. I thought I could pretend not to care. I focused on others, and their expectations of me, as if it was the right thing to do, as if it was any way to live. My time at Ryerson is a blur; I didn’t hate it, but more importantly I didn’t love it, I wasn’t excited about it, and I did not want to be a participant. It was just another set of passive motions to go through, and something had to give.

While attending my 5th class critique that week, I was trying very hard to focus on a heated debate on a student’s audacity to use a decorative line under the text in their design. Some of the other students greatly disagreed with their decision and made it very apparent as the class continued. The discussion grew more heated, words were exchanged, defenses were being made, and I realized something very important…

I was more invested in what was to be my next meal and my route home than I was in anything that they were discussing.

I didn’t have the same curiosity that my peers exhibited towards these intricacies. I’ll be honest, I found it all a little tedious. I just didn’t have the fire to be an active participant in these discussions; I was simply more of a spectator.

In my first year, I’d shut my brain off at the idea of leaving the program; I didn’t even want to think about the consequences and responsibilities that came with a decision like that. Where would I even go next? What would my plan be, my path? I tried to take that choice away from myself, wanting it not to exist for the sake of an easier decision: no decision.

But the longer I was in the program, the more that wrong feeling gnawed at me, the more it festered inside of me. I felt like something was pushing me out of there. I wanted to have a choice. The road ahead wasn’t set, but I knew the road—the track—I was on was at a dead end. I put myself here and I had to get myself out.

But I worked so hard to be here—interviews, essays, portfolio, exhibitions. It’s just what I’m supposed to do, right? How long is 3 more years really? Would I really throw all that away just because I wasn’t interested in my major? Just because I’m not passionate about it, doesn’t mean it should all be discarded; it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do it.

But if I’m not here, where would I be? If I leave, where would I go?

The in-between/nowhere is

“So much of Nowhere was defined by everything I could be, and everything I was not.”

I felt stuck. I felt like I was stagnating and would be there for eternity—the whole world moving except for me. I needed time. To sit with myself, to live with my selves, and see what choices and possibilities would come out of them. I had to linger in the discomfort of uncertainty, in Nowhere.

But there’s a strange sense of tranquility in Nowhere, a sense of peace and predictability. Gone was the pressure of upcoming assignments, and the scrutiny of critique. In Nowhere, there were long shifts and predictable tasks, then rest and relaxation. Sure, the ever present “what am I doing with my life?” loomed overhead, ever foreboding, but that could occasionally be dismissed with a “that’s Future Me’s issue.” I needed time, I thought. I didn’t have time in the past to think about what I really wanted to do, so that’s what I’m doing now. It might not look like it, but I am being productive.

And I want to say that I was researching everyday, preparing for school applications, and spent months meditating and reflecting to gain insight on my true path. But to be honest, I wasn’t as productive as I probably should have been. I was cruising—more the passenger than the driver—and to be honest, I was enjoying this time off. I had the freedom to do things that I couldn’t in the past, things that were previously considered a waste of time.

Despite the newfound freedom that Nowhere granted me, there was also a strange knot in my throat, twisting from the stagnation, the shame. I knew that there was something unbecoming in the way I loitered in Nowhere. There were certain milestones that I should have been meeting, places that I should be by now. This knot loomed over every action, every positive feeling. I would be enjoying a movie and suddenly be accosted with another “how can you even be enjoying movies right now—what are you even doing with your life?”

Regardless of what loomed over my current situation, I never regretted leaving school. The thought of going back was completely unacceptable to me. Choosing my major the first time was a thoughtless decision, a grasp towards going Somewhere instead of being stranded in Nowhere. If I was going to go to school, it should be for something I cared about—something I truly had a passion for, right? But in order to do that, I needed time and I needed to be okay with being Nowhere for a little while.

The pressure to leave Nowhere wasn’t direct. Instead it was a nagging feeling that came from knowing that this decision had to be something I could truly see myself enjoying. Most of the people around me hadn’t had a conventional path to school, to a career. Even so, I still felt like I was doing it all wrong – everyone seemed to know what they were doing – they at least knew where they were going.

I felt like I was missing something because I didn’t understand what having a passion for something felt like; I’d have periods of tunnel vision, lasting months, where I thought I’d finally found My Passion—then I’d come out of it and think, absolutely not.

I didn’t want to decide on one path and I didn’t know how to maintain interest long enough to get somewhere.The interest, the “passion”, would simply turn off one day – in an instant, setting me back to start all over again. And once it was gone, I’d look back at that version of myself, lost—I really did not know “her” anymore. I realized that if this is passion, it simply was not for me. If I had a passion I’d have known by now. But I also realized that my career doesn’t have to center around that anyway. I decided to center it around something I could be good at, something I could get better at, because at least then I could be learning.

I wasn’t desperate to make a decision though. I took my time because it was my time. This was something that only affected me, but still I didn’t want it to affect me badly. If I wanted to avoid the shame of making yet another wrong choice, of not knowing how to make a choice, I had to learn how to trust myself and listen. I knew time wouldn’t stop for me, but I enjoyed the freedom in being indecisive, uncertain, unknowing. I only feared being here too long, unchanging, left behind because I couldn’t decide.

Somewhere Important

I had to learn to be understanding toward myself while I was in the in between. To make peace with the uncertainty I had to stay there, embrace it, hold on, because then I could see that it was not a meaningless place. It was a place where I didn’t know everything, so what? I came out of it better, and I can revisit it whenever.

To pass through the door, you have to step into the threshold, hang out with uncertainty, and if you want to stay there for a bit then stay there. Isn’t that where choice lives? Here with the uncertainty, ready to guide us toward understanding and enjoyment.

These spaces in between—spaces that we are taught to shun and avoid—are important and valuable. Sometimes, we just need some time In Between to dwell in the uncertainty and doubt. Sometimes, we just need time to learn, to think, or maybe just to exist. Maybe we’re learning how to forgive ourselves for it, or maybe we’re learning that there wasn’t anything to forgive in the first place.

“So, I guess we are who we are for alot of reasons. And maybe we’ll never know most of them. But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.”

―Stephen Chbosky

Dunja Dudarin is a third-year Professional Writing student who is aspiring to become a better reader and writer through her time at York University. She is the Assistant Editor-in-Chief at Inventio, and a Junior Editor at Existere—Journal of Arts and Literature, where she is learning with others and having a good time doing so.

Yun Hsu is a third-year student in the English and Professional Writing program at York University. She is currently the Senior Editor for Art at Existere—Journal of Arts and Literature as well as a Junior Editor for Inventio.