An Ephemeral Existence

AN E P H EMERAL EX I S T A N C E

SHOOTS TEAM ON SITE Jade Sievers, Val Kolczynski MODEL Isabelle Santiago PHOTOGRAPHER Sammy Crown/ Lily Fox WRITTEN BY Breanna Tang EDITED BY Lexi Fernandez VIDEOGRAPHER Chloe Mueller 1 LAYOUT Stella Humberg

SIX FEET UNDER

The time has come. To bury all of the past traumatic experiences, toxic relationships, and self-loathing. Numbed from the act of placing others before yourself, you don’t even have a true understanding of your potential. Change is inevitable in life. It’s uncomfortable. It’s chaotic. It’s exhilarating. Yet, it is something everyone must endure. As a child, women were taught to be caretakers. Most get lost in this idea by giving far too much of their energy to others, leaving nothing for themselves. Growing into adulthood, we then begin to realize that we’ve poured a little too much into other people’s cups. The turbulence in life takes its toll, whether you were backstabbed or you’ve grown out of people, and you feel empty. Empty to the point where you begin to second guess yourself and the person you’ve become. You feel emotionless, heartless, even. These people have driven you completely mad. In turn, you are forced to redirect your energy, finally caring for yourself and unraveling a part of you that has been missing for all of these years.

You feel different yet empowered. There is a method to this madness. Do these people not understand what they’ve created? However, these experiences needed to happen for this version of you to come to fruition. You begin to look at this old version of yourself as naive and disorderly. Almost unrecognizable. Wanting to just go back to old ways because that is what others were comfortable with, but that is only half the battle. The hard times in life are meant to expose you to what you hope to avoid.

Time has passed, yet the craving for chaos is still present. Beginning to hear the constant chirps of others saying “she’s changed” or “she’s selfish”, but isn’t that the point of life? Self-love isn’t selfish, and what people say about others is merely a projection of themselves. It is easy to get lost in the idea of what others think about you, but regardless of what you do, whether good or bad, someone will always have something to say about it.

This feeling of change can sometimes lead to madness because you begin to overthink and overanalyze everything to the point where you wish you were as naive as you once were. You wish yWou didn’t know that there is hate in this world all while your trust in people and your hopes begin to dissipate. But once this energy is directed toward you, you can almost feel the toxins leave your body, and peace begins to enter. Life is about balance. It is like a seesaw, the constant back and forth of good and bad things outweighing each other.

Everything happens for a reason. There is real strength in awareness and acknowledgment of self-sabotage. Finally shattering that threshold is unsettling but follows with many lessons. Without these poor experiences and challenging life events, you wouldn’t be the person you are today. Perfection is a fallacy, and being content with the different aspects of you is what matters most. People may not agree with the person you’ve become, and you may lose friends along the way, but there is beauty in embracing the unknown. Now, cheers to the celebration of a fresh start.

CITY OF THE DEAD

“Life is about balance. It is like a seesaw, the constant back and forth of good and bad things outweighing each other.”