Angst is what I know best. Just wanted to do some writing- this is what came out. Would love to know your thoughts!
Imposter syndrome, they say, is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts the legitimacy of their own accomplishments and lives in fear of being exposed as a 'fraud'. Beca Mitchell understands that, she thinks. It's the thought that circles in her mind, laying in the middle of her king-sized bed, the heavy silence pressing in around her. There's not even wind, tonight. She wishes for the wind that makes the bones of her house groan; her only company most nights.
Instead, she simply stares out at the lilac sky- polluted by the lights of the city- watching the virgin snowfall. Quiet. And she attempts to recall where she had even heard the term 'imposter syndrome'.
She's worked hard for what she has, she knows this. But she still can't help but feel like she'd just gotten lucky, for the most part. Lucky she knew who she did. Lucky people liked what she had made. Just luck, nothing else. She's unlucky about a lot of things, too. That's just how life is; she'd been brought into this world without permission, or consent; she'd never signed a form allowing herself to exist. She was just brought into this world, like everyone else, and forced to deal with it. And this isn't the first time this idea has stayed up with her through a sleepless night to haunt her; like the monster lurking under her bed. She's terrified of it, but she's also simultaneously trapped yet safe sitting atop of it, keeping it suffocated with the only leverage she has; the knowledge of its existence.
Her mother always said she was sensitive. A sensitive, artist's soul. She'd once overheard her mother's stupid, alcoholic, singular, and ever-present friend Virginia describe her to one of her mother's suitors as 'delicate like a bomb'. Beca has since wondered if this sensitivity, this vulnerability had anything to do with her luck. It seemed more likely that the draw of luck in her life was something more like the fact that despite all of this; her alleged success, whatever it may be called- was the fact that she still was unhappy about it.
Or- no- unhappy wasn't the word.
Unsatisfied.
Maybe stupid, sensitive, delicate Beca would never be satisfied by any of it because she was a greedy, angry little monster inside. And she's spent her whole life fighting the illusion that she could ever be sensitive. And yet- she was still transparent. That terrifies her.
Many things terrify her. She wakes up terrified, and she remains that way through the day. She's scared that she is scared. Scared that she is slipping with every step she takes, and she will inevitably slide down the paper and garbage pyramid she had spent her life building for herself, and she will crash into the bottom. Alone. And she's terrified because she doesn't know what waits for her down there, at the bottom, in the dark, because she's spent so long trying to reach the sun. Even if her pathway there wasn't well founded.
Chloe tells her that her outlook on life is harsh. She disagrees with the unspoken theory that Beca has; in which anything that happens to her that is perceived as positive is fake- it happens as a mistake, or is never the result of her own goodness. And, on the other hand, all things negative are the objective truth- and they're always her own fault. She tells Beca-assures her, constantly, of the opposite- to which Beca reminds herself that Chloe is only part of her life because Chloe, herself, is a mistake.
And yet she remains at Beca's side. In her general vicinity, at least. Obedient. Patient.
It only makes Beca resent her more.
This resentment is the next ghoul to haunt her; invisible, but it hooks itself into Beca's ceiling and follows her from room to room. Beca is well aware that it comes from inside of her. She resents Chloe- and her goodness- because she resents the part of herself that loves her when she is entirely aware that eventually, Chloe will leave. Because Chloe is too good for her. Chloe would never have her. They are two polarizing atoms in the grand scheme of this world that they did not ask to be born into; small, insignificant, but Chloe welcomes the adventure of human life where Beca actively avoids any semblance of love towards it. Here she is now, wondering about her personal confrontation of love- a deep, genuine care- and her first instinct was to detest it. A bitter seed was planted in her, somewhere along the path of her lifetime.
Or maybe she was simply born rotten.
Chloe doesn't like Stacie. Nobody likes Stacie. Beca likes Stacie; because Stacie is a demon she can see very clearly; it doesn't lurk under her bed, or in a dark corner, in a closet or cling to her ceiling. She is very much there, visible in the daylight with her fangs shining, and Beca finds that entirely comfortable. Any individual can sit with her, and know exactly what she is within an hour of meeting her. And what she was, matched her own 'bomb-like-fragilities' very well. To be lonely and blacking out on your own wasn't any fun; nor was it acceptable or leisurely to do around someone who cares for you- but gather another lonely individual and to do it together?
Free love.
Beca discovered this around the time she was becoming acquainted with the ghost on her ceiling. There was nothing worse than being friends with someone you're in love with who doesn't love you back, she'd realized. Hence the need to drink in her big, expensive home by herself, and be unsatisfied.
The silence, however, was always there. It never goes away.
Silence inside of herself. Silence in the house. When filling the void of this silence- both locations- with Chloe grew too painful, too uncomfortable- she had to look elsewhere.
She didn't have a lot of options.
She refuses to believe Stacie is all evil- as some of those around her would like to have her believe. Because that's simply not the case. The world is big and its greyscale, which so many people like to conveniently forget when passing judgement on another. It is possible to be good and evil at the same time. That's all there is.
And here she is. Awake another night. Accepting, another night, that she was purposely sabotaging herself and there was nothing she could do about it. She didn't know how to live without it. She didn't know how to make anything easy on herself- she doesn't deserve easy. Greedy Beca needs things to be sensitive about. She needs a reason to feel the way she does. She is the snake that eats its own tail and she refuses to have anyone close to her that will suffer from this fucked up operation of her life. She will push Chloe and her love out of the door and convince herself that Chloe was only gone because that's the way life works- her life- that goodness cannot stay and it won't ever stay, not for her, but Stacie can stay. Stacie can stay because it makes sense.
Doesn't it make sense?
She's psychoanalyzed herself from every angle, every direction; vertical, sideways, upside-down, backwards- and she still feels as if she doesn't understand. She knows. Knows everything she's ever done, and is continuing to do to herself, and yet she can't understand. She simply does. Watches herself do it, somehow remote from herself. Beca Mitchell was unreachable to herself just as a star, or the sun she was trying so hard to climb to, was unreachable. Her persistent companion of terror brought her closer to the future than the present moment at any given instant.
But she is sensitive. She speaks from the heart, and it's brought her 'success'. She feeds her monsters every night before bed; Stacie feeds her cocaine, and pills, and together they can call it union of artistry. Their pain is shared and found within one another and understood. She leaves Chloe and her love to starve.
Doesn't it make sense?
Does any of it make sense?
Is she making sense?
Is the snow listening to her?
Or is the snow sealing her tomb?
Will it always be like this?
Will she always feel like this?
She is so terrified that every feeling is going to be permanent, no matter how many times she's proven wrong.
Is any of it making sense?
Will it?