On My Own

An Introduction

Welcome to Oversharing: A Contemporary Diary, the hopefully bi-weekly newsletter by me, Valeria Chávez.¹

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AN INTRODUCTION

I have always been an oversharer. As one of my friends wrote to me, I am, quote, a big sentimental dork. Please ensure this is incorporated into my epitaph. I also love to write, but I haven’t done that much lately. I blame grad school and the pandemic and myself.² It’s difficult to describe the kind of writer I am. I find it incredibly difficult to sit down and write words on a blank page. I can feel the blinking cursor judging me as I spend 45 minutes melting my brain on TikTok with an empty Google Sheet on my screen. Then I feel bad about having wasted 45 minutes of my precious life and instead close the computer and go outside and walk.³ Inspiration doesn’t strike me the way it did when I was younger and angstier and undiagnosed. Creativity came to me in nagging fits that would not rest until I put down what I was thinking. Now that I am older and medicated, my process is different. What that process is, I’m still trying to figure that out. I want to find a way to dedicate myself more to my writing and get over my fear of judgment by adding some external pressure. That’s where you, my dear reader, come in.

I invite you all to read, critique, judge, comment, and above all, enjoy this newsletter, however long it may last. It has no theme, except that I am the narrator and these are my thoughts and feelings. Sometimes the writing will be very personal and introspective, sometimes it’ll be about the last tv show I watched.⁴ I’d like to say this will be an exploration of vulnerability and confidence in my writing, but I’d rather not assign such heavy goals for this newsletter just yet.⁵ My goal is for this to be an enjoyable personal project for me and a fun read for you. I haven’t fully gotten the hang of the whole writing thing, but I think this will help.

So, if you’re feeling nosy and want to be notified when I publish future newsletters, please hit the subscribe button. Tell your friends, your parents, your co-workers, the barista at your favorite coffee shop! It is called Oversharing, after all.

Now without further ado, our first story.

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111 Days of Living on My Own

I hate being alone. It took me moving back in with my parents prematurely, the entirety of grad school, a solo trip to Europe, and moving to a new city by myself to learn this.

As a teenager, I rarely played the role of the angsty child who couldn’t wait to get away from home. I was relatively fine living at home. I was a teenager, that’s what teenagers do. I didn’t much consider what happens afterward. My plan for life was simple. I knew someday I would leave the house and go to college and get a job. At some point, Life would happen. I would live in an apartment in a city, get a job doing something I like, be a person and do it all on my own. I rarely dreamt of marriage or children. I don’t know what it means to settle down in a place to call home and stay there forever. Those things sound like nice gigs if you can get them but I didn’t think those things were for me. They felt like dreams that could never be mine. Whenever I have allowed myself to dream, more often than not, I am alone.

I am a person who likes to be around people most of the time. I love making new friends. I love going to places with lots of people to share an experience. I love being with other people and hearing their stories. Yet, I have a tendency to isolate myself as much as possible. In interviews, I tell potential employers I prefer to work alone. I used to lock myself up in my room and try to get myself to do my homework alone when I knew I’d benefit from having another person around me. I moved to a city I never wanted to live in and find myself more alone than I’ve ever been.

Since leaving home, I’ve found that the thing I miss the most is noise. I miss the reminder that there is another human being present in my space. That used to bother me so much, the feeling that I was never actually alone. Now that I can’t escape it, it’s suffocating. I miss the sound of the novela’s theme song going off every 23 minutes. I miss hearing my brother whistling. I miss my dad taking zoom calls from the kitchen without headphones and the morning huddle meeting reverberating throughout the house. I miss randomly hearing my mom call my name from downstairs to ask me a question that was not urgent and being annoyed that I was pulled away from my Doing Nothing Alone to be in a space with her.

I could blame a lot of things for my unnatural need to be independent: the way I was raised, idolizing Audrey Gelman at an impressionable age, third-wave feminism, anxiety, Lizzo. I fear I have taken the “independent woman” ideals too far. I am independent like I always knew I would be, but in becoming so I have isolated myself. I focused on a loosely-curated perfect life for myself with no dreams for what that life would look like when shared with others. I created my own isolation without considering what makes life worth living.

I’m learning what I want for my life. I want to start dreaming of a life where people are along for the ride. I want to learn how to cook so I can have a dinner party with my friends. I want to go to concerts for musicians I’ve never heard of and have the time of my life. I want to find my home, whatever that looks like. I want to find my people and make a space for myself with them. I want to talk too much and fall asleep on someone’s couch. I want to write and dance and lose my voice. I want to fall in and out of love and try again when I’m ready. I want to find a little bit of myself in every person I meet until I’ve exhausted living every life I could possibly have. And when I’m gone, I hope I have lived a life that my children’s children will hear stories about, so I never really stop living.

Love,

Valeria 

1. Oh look, a footnote feature! This will be fun.

2. Mostly myself.

3. I am a liar. You know I went back to TikTok. It’s an addiction! I do need help!

4. Sneak preview!

5. Saving it for the book deal.