every substack girl's writing
its not harsh if its true
i look out the window and its shining really bright today. i think about the worries on my mind, how they're floating like the wind. this past year i spent a lot of time thinking about myself, and where i want to be in 10 years.
relationships have been very difficult lately. D has been on my mind, N has only been eating crackers, and aging has been happening to me.
someone once told me, 'you're only enough when you feel enough' and those words have really been weighing on my mind. one time i was sitting at the coffee shop, the coffee shop i always went to as a kid, and the waiter asked me if i wanted sugar. i said no because i knew i was already enough.
it's a weird thing to be in your 20s. you don't know what's to come and you don't know where you're going. but 20 things i've learned when i turned 20 was that i am a great person and i will succeed in life. no one will stop me and only i know that.
my 'how to make friendships' tip of the week is to look for shiny people. if they don't shine like a diamond, then don't be their friend. if they're not quite there, take a shining cloth and rub their forehead a little bit. that'll do the trick.
but make sure not to do it to yourself. people don't like it when you're faking your shine. everyone in the room can tell you've shined yourself.
This post feels kind of sad to me, because it makes writing seem like an exclusive club where only the truly original or profound get to participate. But writing - no matter how generic - is a good exercise for the mind, a healthy hobby, and something everyone should feel encouraged to do, regardless of whether others find it groundbreaking.
And if this is specifically targeting young women in their 20s, it taps into a bigger issue: the way girls and women are so often mocked for enjoying things. Of course, there will be overlap in what they (or we) write about. They’re at similar life stages, navigating similar experiences, and those experiences naturally shape their writing. That doesn’t mean their perspectives aren’t valid or worth exploring. Not everything has to be the most original thought ever to be meaningful.
Undermining other people’s writing just because it doesn’t meet some arbitrary standard of uniqueness doesn’t do much except discourage people from expressing themselves. And that’s a shame, because writing should be for everyone.
Don’t forget you have to be an eldest daughter too