Media For When You're Feeling Lost
Books, movies, music, and Substack posts that are there to give you a hug
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Hello, lovely readers!
In case you missed it, I posted last week a Substack titled, “You Are Not a Failure for Moving Back Home.” I got responses from many of my friends expressing how it resonated with them, but also from others who were well into their adult lives reflecting on how relatable some of the themes within it felt to this day. It reminded me that feeling lost or directionless isn’t just a signifier of the post-grad, twenty-something burnout phase. Feeling unsure about life, where to go next, what you value, and who you are can happen at any point.
The most recent time I felt really directionless and confused was the months leading up to my graduation last June. But I soon remembered other times in my life when I felt this way, like in the middle of high school while deciding colleges, the end of middle school when I left my K-8 school, and even as a young child wondering why I sat by myself reading during recess and couldn’t make friends. There will definitely be times I feel lost in my thirties, forties, fifties, and beyond into my elderly years. It made me pause and appreciate how going into adulthood we don’t magically have all the answers. We’re all still how we were as kids, trying to figure stuff out step by step.
When I’m feeling most lost and confused, the written word and fiction tend to be where I turn. Like James Baldwin once said:
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”
With this in mind, I compiled some books, films, music, and Substack posts to peruse or engage with when you are feeling the most lost, confused, disillusioned, or directionless in life. These pieces of media have helped me in the past, either by reflecting a mirror to my own circumstances, or reminding me that, while not everyone may be in the same boat, we are all navigating the same ocean.
Books
✶ A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Had to start this off with one of my favorite books of all time. Francie, the protagonist, starts her journey as a young child sitting on a stoop, and we follow her all the way to adulthood where she watches neighborhood kids sitting on those same stoops. A story built in a small apartment, the novel honors quiet endurance and self-assurance. God, it’s a really beautiful story. In writing this, I’m now seriously considering giving this a reread.
✶ The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy
A really gentle, tender little book with beautiful drawings. It’s simple and quietly profound with phrases like “Always remember you matter, you’re important and you are loved, and you bring to this world things no one else can” littering the pages. I read this for the first time after I’d moved into a new apartment away from my hometown, and it really spoke to me. It truly feels like a warm hug.
✶ Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black: Collected Stories by Cookie Mueller
You ever read something and you suddenly feel the urge to do something crazy and wild? That’s how I felt once I finished this. (I was like, maybe I should dye my hair and move to a different country when I finished this book, I’m not kidding.) Mueller’s voice when talking about art, love, addiction, and survival is honest, wacky, raw, and funny. It sometimes felt like catching up with a girlfriend you hadn’t seen in a long time. This book made me feel less concerned about my future, since Mueller basically never planned one, she just went with the flow. It was super freeing to read!
✶ Just Kids by Patti Smith
UGH this book. So raw and emotional and perfect. Patti Smith’s memoir about her longstanding relationship and connection with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe is a love letter to her youthful heart and the process of becoming who you’re destined to be. It’s an amazing reminder that all the artists and figures you revere simply were just kids once.
✶ Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
Focusing on two Black creatives who want to love each other despite being surrounded by violence, Open Water is a monument of a novella. It covers many themes from self-discovery to vulnerability, all with what my friend called “ocean-like prose.” I don’t want to give too much of the story away, but trust me on this one. I’ve recommended it to many people, and everyone has given it five stars. I truly feel it’s a book I could read at many points in my life and get something out of it.
✶ The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
For my YA readers, or fans of Young Adult, this book is for you. If you feel unheard or like the outsider in your family or friend groups, I present to you Xiomara, a young poet who writes about her life through verse. This book is about her first loves, heartbreaks, religious and family trauma, and high school woes, but it also, on a broader level, is about finding your voice and how words can be a form of freedom. (By the way, this book was so good that I finished it in literally one day. Highly recommend!)
✶ Loud: Accept Nothing Less Than the Life You Deserve by Drew Afualo
I included this book on here because, although I don’t always love the memoir/self-help genre, this book made me feel like I could run a marathon once I’d finished it! If you need a fire lit under you, read this. Drew has always been bold, unapologetic, and loud (hence the title), but this book demonstrates how you can be, too. It challenges you to take up space unflinchingly, and she shares really fantastic life experiences surrounding jobs and relationships that I feel anyone, at any point of their life reading, can gain wisdom from.
✶ The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
My best friend, Ryan, just read this for the first time, and in discussing it with him, I was reminded how absolutely poignant this book is. Holden, while he can sometimes be a pain, is truly an embodiment of how disillusioned you can feel about the world, and how as a teenager, life can feel so insane. When you’re fifteen, the world feels overwhelming all at once, but that’s just it: you’re fifteen. There’s so much more life ahead of you. Honestly, I feel like Holden is one of the most painfully honest narrators out there in literature, that you can’t help but find this book relatable.
✶ Books from when you were a kid
I work in a children’s bookstore, and recently we restocked our shelves with The Magic Treehouse series by Mary Pope Osbourne and the Dork Diaries series by Rachel Renée Russell. It was slow that day, and since I was at the front desk by myself, I nabbed the first Dork Diaries from the shelf and began to reread it, having not read it for almost fifteen years. I was still laughing at all the same humor! It reminded me, not only of how well written they are, but of how the children we once were still live within us. <3
Movies
✶ Frances Ha (dir. Noah Baumbach)
I understand that this movie will probably speak differently to me in about five years, but for now, it was exactly what I needed. A perfect film for the confused twenty-something that is quirky and lovely in all the right ways. Frances is hopeful and stubbornly herself, and the film walks this perfect balance of unstoppable ambition and awkward reality.
✶ Lady Bird (dir. Greta Gerwig)
This movie is a lot like how I feel about The Catcher in the Rye. Everything felt so huge and major when you were a teenager! Watching it, I was reminded of how much passion I once had as a teen about building the ideal, perfect future, and how I thought everything was going to work out once I moved away from home and went to college. It’s a great film for when you want to feel immense compassion for your younger self, and Saoirse Ronan’s performance feels like a big, clinging, squeeze-the-air-out-of-you type of hug.
✶ Pump Up the Volume (dir. Allan Moyle)
For my fellow cynics! I just watched this for the first time last week and completely fell in love with this odd, very 90s gem. When it isn’t crass, loud, and messy, it’s an extremely earnest film centering on free speech and speaking up when oppressive systems want you to stay silent. Sure, it’s feels very of its time, but it still speaks to today in many ways. Never feel ashamed for not wanting to live the life others want you to live! So be it!
✶ Amélie (dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
When the world feels cold and impersonal, Amélie, in all its warmth, is there for the watching! The film reminds us how noticing people, really noticing, and choosing to be kind, can make a world of difference, not only in other people’s lives but also in yours. It’s also the perfect film for romanticizing your daily life and finding beauty in the little things :)
✶ Moonlight (dir. Barry Jenkins)
Tender and restrained, Jenkins’s Moonlight is an honest portrayal of trying to understand and love yourself despite your circumstances. Becoming yourself can be a brave act, and Chiron’s story from childhood to adulthood is a powerful narrative reminding you that you don’t have to be defined by your past, and the child you once were still lives within you. Not to mention, it’s an incredible piece of work, from an artistic perspective, and I think everyone should see this film at least once.
✶ Before Sunrise/Before Sunset (both directed by Richard Linklater)
I’ve often realized when looking at my life in retrospect that many opportunities and experiences I’ve had are because life worked in a mysterious and mystical way, not because I micromanaged my future. These two movies, told ten years apart, focus on how timing can be magical and that certain experiences, even if they are only 24 hours, can alter the course of your entire life. Honestly, these films made me believe in love again. (And no, I am not including Before Midnight in this even though it’s part of the trilogy because that movie simply doesn’t exist to me! No thanks!)
✶ Uptown Girls (dir. Boaz Yakin)
God, where do I begin with this one? I cried a lot when watching this movie because it perfectly encapsulates that weird feeling being too old and yet too young in your own body. It’s that weird balance of wishing you were older when you’re young, and wishing you’d cherished your childhood when you’re and adult. Watching Brittany Murphy and Dakota Fanning beautifully play opposite each other is a sight to behold. And don’t even get me started on the spinning teacup scene!
✶ Howl’s Moving Castle (dir. Hayao Miyazaki)
There are lots of Studio Ghibli movies that could apply to this theme, but I chose this one…and maybe I’m biased because it’s my favorite! But really, this movie shows how having courage in yourself and rejecting the material pressures of society leads to strength in yourself and others. Sophie’s transformation isn’t about becoming young, it’s about becoming brave and self-assured.
Albums
✶ The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars by David Bowie
Maybe an odd pick to start off this list, but being a Bowie superfan, I had to include him in here somewhere. What can I say? He’s a balm for the soul. Bowie’s persona of Ziggy, an alien who visits Earth, observes the human experience through song. This album hits more now in the current year of 2026, since it was written during a time when anxieties about nuclear warfare and Cold War tensions were at their height. The opening track “Five Years” mirrors the existential dread that will creep up on me when thinking about the current craziness of our world, but I’m reminded how in 1972 (the year this album came out), people thought it was the end times. And yet we’re here. There’s something very comforting knowing that throughout history, people have always thought it might be the end of the world…and yet we persist.
✶ What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye
Another album that hits particularly hard now in present day. Marvin Gaye covers racial inequality, poverty, war, environmental destruction, and political turmoil (and that’s just the start of the list). But, at the center of it, Gaye sings about needing love and deep understanding. It’s an album for when you are feeling like you need healing and want solidarity in your confusion. When I listen to it, it feels cathartic in the way it addresses a need for purpose in the world.
✶ Rumours by Fleetwood Mac
Hear me out: Rumours is a fantastic quarter or mid-life crisis album. Don’t believe me? The album covers many parts of a person’s life, including love, heartbreak, chaos, uncertainty, resilience, and freedom. You can listen to this album at any point and feel connected to it. Bad breakup? Listen to “Go Your Own Way.” Feel inspired and like life is on your side? Listen to “Don’t Stop.” Saying “their loss” after your relationship? Listen to “Dreams.” Feeling self-reflective? Listen to “Never Going Back Again.” See what I mean? It’s a soundtrack for life!
✶ Corinne Bailey Rae by Corinne Bailey Rae
Sometimes, when you feel lost or unsure of the future, you need an album that reminds you that despite it all, you’ll be okay. This self-titled debut is light, youthful, vulnerable, and filled with hope. To me, this album feels like sunshine and whimsy personified! It’s a reminder to go for a walk, let your hair down, dance, and find romance in every day life.
✶ Lush by Mitski
And sometimes you need an album for when you’re feeling really melancholy about your directionless-ness, and that’s okay, too! Mitski’s debut is haunting and unflinching when talking about love, power, beauty, and rage. If you want an album that embodies the tearing-out-your-hair-screaming phase of feeling lost and disillusioned, this is it. The song “Abbey” is what I feel most represents its spot on this list with these lyrics:
“I am hungry
I have been hungry
I was born hungry
What do I need?I am something
I have been something
I was born something
What could I be?”
✶ Blue Banisters by Lana Del Rey
One of her most personal albums to date. Lana Del Rey assesses her past while also healing in the present. Unlike some of her other albums, she names some of her family members, focuses on mending familial bonds that were lost, and paints pictures of solitude and childhood memories. My favorite song on the album, “Beautiful,” is a standout to me with these lyrics:
“What if someone had asked Picasso not to be sad?
Never known who he was, or the man he’d become
There would be no Blue Period
Let me run with the wolves, let me do what I do
Let me show you how sadness can turn into happiness
I can turn blue into something beautiful”
✶ Basically any of Lorde’s albums
Lorde has always been one of my favorite artists because her lyrics always seem to speak directly to my soul. I mean, the lyric “It feels so scary getting old” from her song “Ribs” hits me now the same way it did the first time I heard it when I was fourteen. What’s so special about her music is that it not only evolves over the years with her but also with us and our life experiences. From teenage rebellion and anxieties to adult uncertainty and self-awareness, she is narrating throughout life stages. My favorite album of hers is Melodrama, but all four of her albums perfectly capture the feeling of just trying to figure life out.
Substack Posts
✶ “why feeling lost might mean you’re finally doing it right” by ayushi thakkar
“being lost is the body’s way of saying: wait. before we climb another ladder, can we check where it’s leaning? can we stop and ask if this was ever mine?”
This Substack found me at exactly the right time. In the months following my college graduation, this Substack came to the top of my feed. Boy, was I glad I clicked on it and read it. If you feel like having no path or direction is the worst place to be in, this Substack will completely reframe your thinking!
✶ “Where Does Your Sparkle Go?” by Madison Huizinga
“When that extinguishment comes about, you have to look at it dead on and perhaps look ahead at the dreaded bigger picture. You have to know when it’s time to carry on. What a relief to know that there are always bigger fish to fry. And that we grow into our appetite for them.”
This spoke to me particularly because I, too, left a big city, and once I went back to visit, it felt so strange. This essay was like a hug when I read it, because it reminded me that just because a place is part of your story doesn’t mean you have to go back. It’s just a piece in a large puzzle of your shimmering life. Finding your sparkle doesn’t look like a Pinterest board, because life is essentially one, big moving photograph.
✶ “I don’t want a job” by Amie McNee
“We financially reward meaningless work more than we compensate meaningful work. Think of the way we pay middle management, compared to the way we pay teachers, nurses, emergency services, artists. If you get meaning or a sense of purpose from your work, we pay you less. The meaning is payment enough.”
The title of this piece immediately drew me in. Amie, as an artist and creative person, said the quiet part aloud, and I wanted to read it out of solidarity. It’s a fantastic essay on how we all should desire work that fulfills us, not just work for the sake of working. It feels radical in a world that prioritizes exhausting yourself as a sign of a job well done, and it’s an essay I needed to read when I was first looking for a job post-college.
✶ “i developed an allergy to work” by ✧ brooklyn 𓆏
“It wasn’t until I stopped trying to claw my way back onto the path I’d lost and started building something I actually cared about that I realized the truth: the identity I was killing myself to protect was so much smaller than the person I actually get to be.”
This is like the absolute perfect companion piece for my post about moving back home! Sometimes your body knows what you need before your mind does. This essay is an important reminder that having your life figured out means listening to your body and mind, and choosing to listen to what you need most in your job, your home, and your life. (And it also sounds like brooklyn needs a redo on the Food and Wine Festival lol)
✶ “Finding Your Feet” by Autumns Bramble
“Sometimes, finding your feet is looking down and loving where they stand. Loving how they move. Being thankful for having feet to stand on. Sometimes it’s not about a new adventure—it’s about finding peace in your current one.”
A beautiful and gentle reminder of how sometimes you need to stop stressing about the past and future, but focus on the present. It really is true how one day you’ll look back at the time you’re in right now with fondness. Kind of meta, but seriously, there are times where I was so stressed and concerned about life, and now, months past that stress, I only remember the good parts. Finding your footing should happen on the ground you’re currently on, not reserved for future you.
✶ “shut up! you’re the only one that knows you” by Hannah Cao
“Walk through life with your head held high, your truth intact, and your peace and heart protected. You’re not here to be defined by others. Whether others see you or not, you’re just supposed to be you.”
As a people pleaser, this essay was a welcome reminder. :) You truly are the only person who knows you! Seeking outside validation and letting others dictate your life because “they know best” will never fill your cup. Listening to what your needs are will always result in you feeling less unmoored and more in touch with your spirit.
Phew! This was a long one. I thank you for making it to the end. Can you believe it’s almost March? Spring is so close I can taste it!
Thank you for reading this week. I hope you’re taking care of yourself! I appreciate you <3
Lillian
I just finished a tree grows in Brooklyn!! Such a great book
I loved this!! I have been wanting to read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn! I also appreciate the shoutout. Catcher is one of those books that, at least to me, speaks to the heart of a teenager. In HS, everything is so big, scary, and important. It just seems like the world crashes when one small thing happens! uggh such a good book, and a great piece!