Hey Kaleigh!

Tag: social-media

  • I Still Have One Direction Infection

    Personal Photo – Love on Tour 2022

    The adults snickered, certain it was just a phase. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.

    One of my first posts explains how One Direction defined my childhood. Losing Liam Payne last year unlocked something inside of me. Something that had muted itself.

    I still don’t know how such an intense, energetic child went so quiet inside. How time became so flimsy when the delicate child who adored those boys was shattered at 22 by a text from a childhood friend and a cruel TMZ headline that confirmed the worst.

    This is for those who are shakily struggling. Not facing some roaring problem, but something hidden inside. 

    You can still show up for yourself.

    Your smile isn’t gone forever.

    You still have so much work to do. The road is going to feel tumultuous. Something inside will still nod you in the right direction.

    Life hushes itself as you get older. Not obviously, but softly inside where your wild spark used to live.

    When you’re young, infatuation is unapologetically loud. Crooked posters taped on your bedroom walls, lyrics cringily typed as your Instagram caption, the strangely desperate wish that your mom would make a deal with 1D. It was a time of dramatics and earnestness and being so candid.

    Then 23 hit. With bills. A career. Responsibilities. There’s this idea of what I thought being a “grown-up” would look like. This isn’t that.

    But maybe I’m glad that loud devotion was never something I grew out of. Instead, it was practice. My “One Direction Infection” taught me to love others wholeheartedly, even if it hurts sometimes.

    When I remember the girl who never skipped a song, who watched videos of teen boys on stairs, who cared about five strangers like they were family, I realize she wasn’t silly at all. Her heart was open.

    And despite all that has come and gone, she is still in there. Still cheering.

    The world needs the love of a teenage girl. So here’s what I’m learning: 

    Bring back the posters.

    Rewatch the interviews. 

    Call your old friends. 

    Let yourself love loudly again. 

    Because if a band can hold a piece of your heart forever, so can someone real. And honestly, the world needs more genuine love.

  • On The Clean Girl Aesthetic

    Image by Edward Berthelot

    I used to think I was too plain to fit into the “clean girl aesthetic.” That my acne prone skin needed to clear up. That I needed to trade something inside of me. That I would never be “clean” enough.

    But I shouldn’t have kept my guard up. Not over a Tiktok trend. You don’t need approval to feel stylish. You are perfect. You are not some fad. You are already enough. And somehow, being squeaky clean feels suspicious. Because trends change. Not just what looks good, but even the peace in what feels good.

    And if I’m honest, I sometimes find myself growing captivated with this idea that I need to look the proper part. And once I look better, things will fall into place like some sort of denouement. Something colossal and revolutionary. Taylor Swift’s hugest glitter gel pen hits play as my soundtrack.

    A beautiful vibe. But real life is messier than this. The clean girl aesthetic is a cool foundation only if you’ve already found peace in what feels good to you.

    Being a “clean girl” shouldn’t feel unattainable. Following trends is fun. Trying new things feels freeing. Sometimes playing along is the best way to get to know yourself.

    I envision being “clean” feels exciting. But exciting is full of drama. It’s a bit bizarre in a way, that you are freaky if you dry your hair with a Revlon rather than a Dyson. Things feel oddly ordinary. We are caught between wanting authenticity and getting held hostage by it.

    Yet I love the clean girl aesthetic. My skincare routine is the highlight of my day. I just don’t know if performing polish is as satisfying as it looks.

    But what I do know is this: silly little trends make me happy.

    And I hope there’s enough happiness for everyone. Enough room for confidence and uncertainty. Enough space for us all to be beautiful in our own ways.

    Because maybe I’m not “clean girl” enough. But I am whole. And I have been whole all along.

  • Shaped By the Struggle

    Image from iStock

    There is a certain kind of trouble in knowing what is wrong but not how to settle the problem.

    This is how my problems feel sometimes: like some inexplicable trap. Complicated and agonizing just for the sake of it. A trap where the light at the end of the tunnel is just a veneer.

    But recently, I’ve begun to grasp that not every problem needs to be solved. Not just in the way I recall all of my “could’ve would’ve should’ve” moments when I’m stretched thin, but in the way that delicately feeling my emotions — all of them — heals me.

    This is how I am realizing that I often let my problems consume me. I should really let them form me.

    Now, I’m not saying, “I demand that all my problems disappear.” But instead, I am calling myself out on my own b.s. To stop crying over minor inconveniences. I’ve learned that your storyline can adjust when you no longer fit the narrative. That you can feel accomplished while also bothered that everything is falling apart.

    Sometimes I find that my troubles shrink when I concern myself with who I am versus who I worry about. Rather than polishing my Instagram feed and overexplaining my life decisions, like I’m in a Love Island confessional, I’m agreeing to let my life glisten without the fillers.

    I don’t think my approach is a lousy one. I used to be scared of this approach, but now I call it protecting my peace.

    Real life is not an aesthetic. The glow fades fast, things feel intense, wounds run deep, problems come back stronger, and you still make the same blunders.

    We all have errors we wish we could hide away. Our “this wasn’t my noblest decision” moments. But none of my breakdowns made me a failure — they made me gentler. Empathetic. More human.

    At the end of the day, I don’t love the struggle, but I can’t ignore how it’s shaped me.

    The bad taught me to see the good, and maybe that’s the point. To be able to look at everything and say: “This is my life and it is perfectly imperfect.”

  • Learning to Love the In-Progress Version of Me

    Image from Pexels

    I really thought that by 23 I would feel glamorous with a clear direction. I pictured myself as the kind of woman who wakes up at 6am for fun.

    But one day I woke up, glanced in the mirror, and thought: Wow, I’m an adult now. How did this happen? This image of me just came into existence one day. Not quite the successful woman I imagined.

    Turns out, entering true adulthood is not a glow-up montage with the best early 2000s romcom soundtrack. It is more like a winding road full of wrong turns, detours, and dead ends.

    And the hardest part is facing all of the routes you’ve been avoiding.

    When you strip away the identities you’ve been performing, you realize that you haven’t left yourself with much.

    Are you still you once everyone has stopped paying attention?

    This is what being in your 20s feels like: searching for yourself in a world that encourages you to be anyone but you.

    And let’s be honest, figuring out who you are can be an exhausting process, especially in a world obsessed with glow-ups and fast-fashion. Figuring out who you are feels like running a 5K in stilettos.

    Sometimes a breakthrough is simply saying no to what doesn’t feel right. Other times it’s unlearning the false ideas you believed. It is letting go, even if everyone else is telling you to hold on. It is choosing the in-progress version of yourself, even if she’s not trending on Tiktok.

    Here is what I am learning:

    Figuring out who you are is messy (and that’s okay).

    You know yourself better than anyone else.

    So no, I haven’t figured out who I am yet. But paying closer attention is the first step, and it feels like the most grown up thing I’ve done so far.

  • Having It All Still Doesn’t Feel Like Enough

    There’s a version of my life I picture clearly.

    I will wake up early, sip my coffee and feel refreshed. Appreciate my mornings and welcome my perfect thoughts in a journal that is satisfying and organized. My days begin around dawn and are busy without feeling draining.

    This version of me exists somewhere, or I at least want to believe she does.

    On my best days, she feels close. Almost within reach. But then reality sets in, and I’m left wondering if she’s just a fantasy. An aesthetic I’m chasing more than a life I’m living.

    The truth is: I have real achievements. But I still wonder, will any of it ever feel like enough?

    Because sometimes, even joy feels artificial. I previously wrote about my battle with the digital versus the authentic versions of myself and I feel like this struggle still applies.

    In my real life, learning to feel content is a work in progress.

    Being fair to myself looks different than I imagined. It means giving myself the grace to sleep in, even when 9am wake ups don’t align with the “clean girl” aesthetic. Recognizing that softness is just another version of discipline.

    Because the truth is I want more. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a complicated one.

    I want more. Maybe not more things, but more meaning.

  • I Don’t Know About You, But I Don’t Know How To Feel At 22

    There is something frightening about getting older. I’m not talking about the crow’s feet that are already starting to form or the smile lines I have had since I was a teen (although my 0.3ml of lip filler would tell you that I am a little scared). I mean the feeling that I have to sit with. My memories. My girlhood is beginning to fade into womanhood – yet I don’t know which box I fit into.

    This is not just anxiety, it is existential dread tangled with joy. I am happy to start the next stage of my life. But I am so afraid. I turn 23 next week and cannot wait to see what the year brings; however, 22 was full of uncertainty. Of feeling like I am behind, despite being so young still.

    When I scroll through all the content that my Instagram bombards me with, I am in terrible astonishment of what my peers are up to. Everyone is experiencing such wonderful moments. While they are getting engaged and flourishing, I am still mousy and snapping photos of dazzling lattes that I ordered at brunch with my dad.

    Sometimes I am curious if they feel it too – the prying and pressure to make this all mean something. If they ever panic at 11pm because their fridge is empty and they still haven’t figured out taxes (despite being a math teacher). If they, too, hold their breath and question their milestones just because someone else got there first. I can’t help but wonder whether I am falling behind or taking a different route.

    This year was the year I learned to exist in the gray. 22 forced me to sit in many moments of not knowing. I let myself cry during my prep periods as a first year teacher and then laughed so hard that I choked on iced coffee. I didn’t develop into a better version of myself, but I did develop a more honest approach to life. More tender. More interested in what it means to grow without needing it to look good on camera.

    I still tried to glamorize everything, of course. I still decorated the little corners of my life: dirty chais and Pinterest moodboards and blurry photos of the sunset I took at Target with my mom. But underneath the filters, I let the real stuff in. The mess I’ve always tried to keep covered up. The fear concealed with a smile. The ache planted in my chest of just wanting to belong somewhere. And the small, sweet victories: starting a pilates class. Saying no with less guilt. Starting over and giving myself credit when due.

    So no, I don’t know how to feel at 22. But maybe I’m also not supposed to.

    Maybe that is what makes this age so hauntingly beautiful: it is the one where you begin to establish yourself, even when you are still unsure of where to begin.

  • Don’t Waste Time Becoming The Wrong Version of You

    There’s a version of me I spent years trying to grow into.

    She was always a little more polished. A  little more free. A little more “cool girl in the corner” than I ever was.

    She didn’t cry watching SPCA commercials.

    She didn’t double text.

    She knew how to carve her eyebrows and always said “thank you” instead of “sorry.”

    She was every Pinterest mood board I’ve ever saved, all vanilla girl aesthetic and emotional modesty.

    But she wasn’t me.

    I think we all do this. We frame ourselves out of what we think will be loved. We stitch ourselves together with bits of admiration from strangers, Vogue covers, characters in movies who never seem to need anyone. We go over our personalities like scripts. We examine our softness so we can be more palatable. More preferential.

    And then one day, you look up and realize: 

    You don’t even like the girl you became.

    … 

    I have learned that becoming isn’t always progress. Sometimes it’s performance. Sometimes it’s angst, disguised as glow serum and curated playlists.

    And while reinvention can be healing, becoming the false version of you – the one built from pressure, not authenticity – is utterly exhausting. You will spend all your energy trying to maintain a self that was never viable in the first place.

    So now, I’m doing this instead:

    Becoming the version of me that cries when something upsets her. Who is clingy sometimes and calm sometimes and genuine all the time. Who absolutely needs people. Who completely forgives herself. Who has roots, not just polish.

    The realest version of me may not be the most admired, but she is the one I can absolutely live with. 

    And that matters more.

  • Why Writing Instagram Captions Feels Like Therapy

    There’s something oddly cathartic about crafting the perfect Instagram caption. I am not talking about the cheeky “in my main character era” kind (although I love a good T.S. innuendo). I mean the kind where you sit with an emotion, wrestle it into a few words, and manage to make it sparkle.

    This is not just wordplay, it is a digital diary.

    When I scroll through my camera roll, I am not just looking for my finest angle. I’m searching for a moment that meant something, even if the memory was as short as the camera flash. The gelato that led me to discover a cherry allergy. The bartender I swore looked like Jason Kelce. The photo where my face is asymmetrical and my smile is off-center, but unmistakably real. And when I sit down trying to caption those photos, my intention is more than racking up likes — I’m trying to convey my feelings in a sentence or two.

    A picture is worth a thousand words. But none of my followers are going to read all that. Maybe it’s the writer in me. Or maybe it’s the part of me that wants to be seen. Instagram captions let us share just enough. We can be witty, honest, arrogant, sentimental — sometimes all at once. It’s a space to reclaim control over our stories, in a feed that is often too curated by an algorithm to be anything but real.

    There is also a freedom in knowing it’s not that serious…and yet, sometimes it is. A caption can be a subtle confession delivered through lowercase letters. A double entendre that landed when you felt like you weren’t funny anymore. A quote that you needed to read, even if you had to write it yourself first.

    So yes, caption writing is sometimes a catharsis. It is the digital version of your diary hung in a gallery with your friends, family, and fans. And while I won’t downplay actual therapy for a Notes app draft, I will leave you with this: when the words finally land, and your post goes public, it does feel like a little exhale.

    And that has to count for something.