The world has always been falling apart around you.

featured in The Open Letters | by Divine Mbabazi

From Divine Mbabazi💌

The world has always been falling apart around you.

Not exactly the most comforting declaration, is it? I actually kind of is, depending on how you choose to look at it. Before you roll your yes and scroll to something more jolly, humor me for just a second, will you?

Still here? Good.

When I was four, I was playing with some kids from my neighborhood when a dog that roamed the area from time to time singled me out and started chasing me around, completely unprovoked. Terrified, I started sprinting as fast as my toothpick-sized legs could manage. Every time I glanced back thinking I’d outrun him, that darn thing was still behind me, charging at full speed.

Just when I thought my luck couldn’t get any worse, I tripped on a shoe some kid had left lying around and fell. I did the next thing any four-year-old in my shoes would’ve done: burst into snotty sobs. My body was so busy digesting the aftershock of hitting the ground like a sack of potatoes that, for a split second, I forgot about the dog. But as soon as I looked up, lo and behold, there he stood, his face mere inches from mine.

My twenties have felt a lot like that dog scene: me sprinting in full panic mode, except this time I’m not running from anything, but rather trying to catch up with a life that sometimes feels too fast.

As a twenty-something currently juggling the thrills and woes of this decade, every now and then, I can’t help but feel like my world is falling apart. Sometimes, this feeling is triggered by something as silly as my laptop audio suddenly collapsing during an important work presentation, sending me into a frantic spiral of ‘my apologies’ and ‘I’ll rejoin momentarily-ies.

Other times, however, this feeling is a result of more valid concerns like falling sick or feeling homesick from time to time, but as an immigrant, that’s just an occupational hazard; apparently, no one warns you that chasing the American Dream comes at a cost.

Before I start sounding whiny, I do want to say that I’m grateful for the life I’m living. I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth; in fact, during my childhood, there was no spoon in the picture at all. When you come from humble beginnings like I do, you

learn to appreciate every small thing. But of course being human, you always want just a little bit more.

I can appreciate my fancy job but at the same time wonder if climbing the proverbial corporate ladder is all there is to life. Especially on days like last Tuesday night, when I was happily binging The Polygamist on Netflix - a show I knew I had no business binging because work was only five hours away (yup, it was 2 a.m.). But I had also been working the entire day prior, so I felt I deserved a few moments of self-indulgence.

I’ve spent a big chunk of my twenties so far trying to “get my ducks in a row,” except that sometimes, it feels as though every time I successfully get one duck to fall in line, its sister duck waddles out of line. When I finally push that one back in, the next one after it goes rogue, and the dance just goes on.

And sometimes, my mind feels like the inside of a factory: swarming with thoughts half-finished, sentences half-written, and noises that refuse to be quieted. Or better yet, a nauseating merry-go-round dancing to an excerpt from that Anis Mojgani poem, “And I dream too much and I don’t write enough and I’m trying to find God everywhere.” The only comforting thing in all this is knowing that lots of other twenty-something-year-olds feel the same exact way; afterall, misery loves company.

One thing we often forget about the human experience is how universal it is. Especially the not-so-colorful part of it. Like that time when you’re driving from a crappy day at work, then some cranky idiot almost rear-ends you and proceeds to hurl at you every insult under the sun for a mistake he made, and you can’t help going down the “woe is me”, or “my life just sucks” rabbit hole. Ugh. We’ve all had those days.

Good news and bad news. I’ll start with the bad: If you’ve had one bad day, chances are you’ll have another one. And another one. And so forth. The good news? Well, the same exact rule applies to good days.

But you can’t always curl up into the fetal position and bawl your eyes out each time you’re hit with a bad day. If there’s one thing my twenties have taught me, it’s that you cannot let every minor inconvenience ruin your day. Because it is so easy to let one bad moment turn into a bad day; then, the bad day spills over into a bad week, then a bad couple of months, and before you know it, you’ve had a terrible year.

So if you’re twenty-something and are feeling the overwhelm of it all, here’s a gentle reminder: the world has always been falling apart around you. And if the collapse is

constant, the best thing you can do is to lean into the chaos. Experiment. Fail. Build. Destroy. Rebuild. Fly as close to the sun as Icarus did. Closer, even.

And, if you don’t accomplish much else in this phase of your life, I hope you’ll at least learn to simply be; to exist as your flawed, confused, overwhelmed but raw and unapologetic self.

Because everyone around you is also on their second act. Or third. Or fourth. In any case, we’re all quietly, embarrassingly rebooting. So you best believe, you’re in good company.

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About the Author:

Substack ID: Divine Mbabazi

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