I want a Labubu desperately. Ever since I saw those furry creatures adorning bright pink backpacks while scrolling through Vietnamese TikTok, I knew I had to have one.
My friends haven’t let me live it down. From the comments that I am “ABG-maxxing” (“Kaylee, you already have a Sonny Angel…please don’t tell me you’re going blonde next.”) to the jabs that I am “contributing to the problem of consumerism,” they’ve had their fun.
But it was never really about the toy. It was about the thrill of wanting, of distracting the voices in my head with something furry and ridiculous. It’s easier to obsess over the Energy Series and which AliExpress buyers to purchase from than to sit with the weight of my own loneliness, I’d think.
Unfortunately, Labubus aren’t the only thing I fixate on. When I’m not scrolling through Shopee listings, I’m scrolling through people. I’m fighting through Hinge profiles that blur together in an endless carousel of smiles, prompts and awful selfies. It’s the same, really. I click, swipe and chase that tiny hit of novelty so that I don’t have to sit with myself for too long.
Because this is the truth: There’s an unintentional void — a never-ending hole. Why do I endlessly scroll on Hinge? Why do I swipe through the faces of strangers as if one of them might suddenly cure the ache of being alone in my dorm at 1 a.m.? The app isn’t honorable in the slightest, but it’s distracting, and sometimes distraction is the only currency that I have to spend.
I joke with my friends that I have demons, and they look at me like I’m insane. I tell them about how my loneliness has manifested itself into a voice that never shuts up, because naming the noise makes it feel less monstrous.
I tell everyone, Ricky (the voice in my head) says “Hi!” and we all laugh — and then I go back to checking my phone.
So what next? I throw myself into lab, into research, into writing for The News-Letter because I tell myself that these are healthier obsessions. They’re productive, social and resume-worthy. If these small commitments can make my brain ding in excitement, why not obsess over them? Why not let productivity masquerade as fulfillment? At least lab reports and article deadlines won’t ghost you. And at least they show up when you expect them to — and they don’t say “I love you, Kaylee,” after the first date.
Recently, I’ve come to the realization that it’s a cycle, and that even my small pulls of happiness have their limits. I sit in the Gatehouse until three in the morning, finish my work, close my laptop and Ricky’s voice comes creeping back in. That’s when I start it again: Browsing for Labubu resells that I can’t afford, checking Hinge matches that I’ll never message and refreshing Slack channels for notifications that aren’t there.
I know that this isn’t how you’re supposed to cope. I know that I can be healthier. I can exercise, journal and do therapy. I can talk to real friends instead of the characters in my writing or men holding fish in their profiles. But the truth is that the easiest way for me to forget about loneliness is to drown it in trivialities.
I struggle so much with my mental health. Some days it feels like I’m stitching myself together with jokes by writing funny articles to make others laugh. I feel like I’m fighting too hard to wring a little bit of happiness from my productivity. There’s comfort in seeing my byline in print, in hearing someone say, “I loved your piece!” And, for just a moment, it feels like proof that I exist for more than being the center of another fraternity’s gossip.
But the void doesn’t care. The laughter fades, the issue comes off the table at the Annex and I’m back in my room with my mind pressing in. That’s when I realize how fragile these patches are: Labubus, Hinge, lab meetings and even deadlines for The News-Letter. They hold me together just long enough to get through the week, but they can’t erase how much I can’t come to terms with loving myself.
Here’s where things get a little less bleak. Over the semester, I’ve started noticing small differences. A classmate who stays to help me clean my glassware, an editor who reads my draft and sends back a sincere thank you and a friend who texts me to ask if I want to grab dinner together and means it.
I can’t send Ricky away, but the patches are holding a little longer. The bylines still make me happy, but my pursuit of Labubus has become a gentle hobby instead of an all-consuming itch, and I’ve finally deleted Hinge.
So, no, a Labubu won’t fix my mess of a life. Neither will another match on Hinge, another 10 hours in the lab or another article published in this god-foresaken paper, but the small things add up. I swallow my pride and take it second by second. My depression is a monster, but it gets less scary when I wake up in the morning and realize that sleep wasn’t so terrifying. And maybe that’s enough for now — to find a little peace and to keep stitching myself together with small joys until I start to feel like something whole.
Kaylee Nguyen is a sophomore from Pensacola, Fla., studying Molecular and Cellular Biology and Writing Seminars. Her column tackles how creativity connects with identity as she hopes to connect with others through shared experiences and the universal love for learning.
