The Dichotomy of Privilege and Pleasure

Wading through gratitude, guilt, and all the stuff in between.

Sometimes, life feels like wading through a pool.

You start off swimming leisurely laps — letting the cool water glide between your fingers and toes, admiring how your breath syncs with each stroke. You find a rhythm, and for a little while, it all feels kind of… easy.

Suddenly, your legs start to ache, your lungs constrict, and your eyes sting from the chlorine. You keep catapulting yourself forward, but it doesn’t feel effortless anymore.

Your rhythm is interrupted, and intrusive thoughts start to seep in — like water slowly leaking into your goggles, clouding your vision.

And somehow along the way, you forget how lucky you are to be in the pool at all — to bask in the sunshine and have the privilege to move your body.

Sometimes, the pool doesn’t feel like a pool at all — more like a restless sea, dragging you beneath a wave you can’t seem to escape from.

It’s hard — because from the outside, everything looks great. The kind of life that looks like it floats.

But no one sees the waves crashing just out of frame — or my contorted body flailing beneath the surface.

It’s kind of like that iceberg poster our teachers used to hang on the wall at school — the one that shows just the tip floating above the surface, masking the mess buried underneath.

And for me, what’s hidden is anxiety. Self doubt. Professional frustration. Personal disappointments I haven’t fully processed. Dreams that never came to fruition. Random crying spells. And the occasional daydream about dropping everything and enrolling in pastry school in Europe.

I don’t have a solution, and I’m still trying to catch my breath. But I know I don’t want to stay trapped beneath the surface anymore.

Rather than letting myself sink deeper, I’m trying to slowly float back up. I’m grounding myself in gratitude, practicing mindfulness, and trying (as much as possible) to see the glass as half full — to embrace the magic and whimsy I used to feel during summertime.

Because when I zoom out and take stock, I’m reminded of how much good is woven through the fabric of my life. I know how fortunate I am to have financial stability, to live in a city with the best summer on the planet, to travel, and to have better friends than I’ve ever had in my life.

And I know I carry a lot of privilege, and I’m so lucky. But even still, I don’t want to ignore the waves, even if they feel heavy. I want to work through them, clearing the fog on my metaphorical goggles so I can finally see clearly again.

I want to lean into the pleasure — both in big ways, and in small ones.

And even if this isn’t relatable to anyone else, this little corner of the internet is like my journal. And I’ve missed writing in it.

So here I am again — wading through it. And if you’ve made it this far, thanks for hanging out with me on the shore.