Video : Side Husselen no. 2 Origins & Objectives

Long time readers of this blog perhaps know the story of my various part time jobs, side quests, distractions, and side hustles over the last few years. I wanted to make a little timeline to recap where I have come from and outline where I would like to be going.

It was important to me to mention how lucky I am to have such supportive parents and to point out that I know how much various privileges have shaped my experience of the world thus far. I am endlessly lucky to have the parents I do who let me live while I figure out how to make my dreams a reality, and hopefully make them profitable one day, so that all this extra time at home will have been "worth it".

I already know it has been worthwhile for me to be able to see my family every day like this, maintaining the relationships I have with my parents and brother, as opposed to living on my own and spending less time with them. I will only get so much time with the people I love, I am happy to maximize that time while I still can. I am unmarried, I have no plans to ever have a family of my own, and I don't even date. There is no conceivable reason why I should not continue to live at home while I create the career I want. The "must be out by 18" rule is rather a US centric idea anyway, where Independence and even an individual person's sort-of "profitability" seem to matter most. That's not what everyone thinks though...

Indeed some people may think (and some YouTube commenters have already commented on this video with such...) that my parents are crazy to keep supporting me after 18, that they will certainly "kick their kids out" when they have them. My family have supported my artistic and educational endeavors my whole life, and insisted that I go to college-- where I got an "artsy" degree (read: sorta useless)-- so in their minds it would have been cruel to suddenly, after all that support, to drop me into the world without an income to live off of. Why should they invest so much time, money (and student loan debt), and love into me, and my life as an artist, to only then force me into a corporate HR job or and endless cycle of retail just so I can afford to feed myself? That's just a bad investment.

Also, they love me, they want me to be happy, and can afford for me to keep living with them. So I do. Do I have days where I feel absolutely terrible about being a burden at my age, feel like a failure because I don't have my own house by now, don't have a thriving career by now? Of course I do. It's the veil of guilt which hangs over me constantly, colored too by those student loan payments that keep me feeling like I am not just in debt, but that I am a dept, a drain. Some days are darker, I get caught in that net hanging there, and it tangles tightly, and I feel like giving up. But I have invested too, in myself, and in my dreams, and I'm not going to give up now just because some people think I should be embarrassed to accept the continued help I am offered. The world needs more compassion and understanding, not less.

The response to this video too has reminded my just how much the concept of a person's online identity, especially influencers and big YouTubers, is the tip of an iceberg and not the whole picture. People show parts of their story, not all of it, so before making a suggestion or laying out a judgment it is important to remember there may be details left out, lines between the others offered for the entire internet to see. I barely touch on my student loan debt in this video, but someone (of an older generation) commented below that they were able to buy their own house at 23 because they got a "real job", thus implying I should have done so or should do the same. As if people my age here in 2018 could achieve such a thing at 23 when most of us have 30-50,000 dollars in student loan debt.

Every person's story is different, layered, nuanced, and there are always chapters which go unmentioned, finer points which no one else is owed access too. Even with my tiny audience on YouTube I have already begun to understand that people online will think they know you, that they, a stranger, have got you figured out. When in reality, they have only ever seen the snippets you have uploaded, the small parts fit for display.

And I am more candid here on the blog perhaps, I know I winge a fair bit more over here certainly, but that is because here on the blog I have people who I view as true acquaintances, people who have been commenting for years, who have a fuller picture of who I am than the general audience of YouTube. So thank you long time blog readers, you are certainly more compassionate on the whole!

I'm just a girl trying to figure it all out, still open to receiving the generous help I am offered, and always learning and shaping the career I want to build, the life I want to live, and the person I want to be. I'll always remained confused by those who would stay if offended when it is so easy to click away somewhere else less challenging to their world view. That is just life on the internet though of course! And seeing as I live my life here online, it's a good thing I am used it all by now.

I'm going to keep trying, keep hustling, and keep dreaming, because it's the only thing I know, and because I owe it to myself and many others to never give up. I wish you the very same courage.