I don’t recognize the girl I was ten years ago, and I think if I met the girl I was five years ago I would sit down and have a long talk with her about how the guy she was hung up on at the time wasn’t worth the trouble he caused. I’d tell her to buy all the wacky shirts she wanted and pour her heart out a little more often. But I’ve started taking more risks since I’ve realized we’re all just winging it. I turn 29 on Sunday and the only thought I have about it is, “look at all the cool shit I’ve done in 29 years”.
In a lot of ways, I’ve felt like the winds of change catch me at the most inopportune times, during the moments in life where I want to dig my heels in and beg them to let me linger a little longer. There have been a handful of times where I get this feeling in the pit of my stomach like there’s a storm raging on, and I’m buoying with it uneasily. It always happens right before something in my life gets upended or turned on its head. Call me crazy, but I think it’s my intuition trying to tell me it’s okay, to let whatever happen however it may.
I’ve written a lot the past few years, mostly poems, but rest assured I’m still working on a book, slowly but surely. I adopted the most energetic dog in history who has to chew on a toy after every meal and actively watches Bob’s Burgers. I started creating for myself and it turned into an earring business I’m enjoying growing little by little. I’ve found people, and people have found me, who I hope will be in my life for a long time yet. I’m getting a little teary now, so don’t mind the little splashes you can’t see on my keyboard.
Last weekend I wasn’t nervous to get on stage with my fake band, Vanilla Creem, and perform a mash-up for everyone I work with and then some; decked out in vibrant eyeshadow with a can full of glitter in my hair. Two years ago I got on stage with sweaty palms and voice shaking to read my writing, bathed in bright stage lights, surrounded by people I didn’t know. I rushed through it all, my nerves getting the best of me that time. I am not that same person anymore; it both scares me and excites me to see how I continue to grow.
It’s probably a little morbid to put it in these terms, but I kind of think of my previous selves being buried in a quaint little place amongst blooming trees and patches of wildflowers. I can visit them when I want to thank them for what I’ve learned or tell them stories from the present, but I will never be them again. Parts of them are still small parts of me, the same way small parts of other people have woven themselves into my being, whether they are here or not.
Last night I drank a lot of wine and talked with a friend about all of life’s problems and all of life’s absurdities. We laughed and I ate my chicken sliders too fast, probably. I left hugging a paper bag with two bottles of wine in it while a woman was hot on our heels dragging a sparkling silver suitcase over the uneven pavement. I thought about how a month ago we went to see Everything Everywhere All at Once and I cried with butter and salt still greasy on my fingers from the popcorn. And I hoped maybe science ends up proving multiple universes exist, and I hope that means I’ve found my happiness in my own way in each of them.
There’s one fact that will be true in all of those hypothetical universes: I will always be a romantic. I will always have my arms thrown open for whatever comes next. So I will leave you with a quote from a video I stumbled across recently about how we choose to live our lives; words I will take with me into my 29th year.
“Oscar Wilde said that if you know what you want to be, then you inevitably become it – that is your punishment, but if you never know, then you can be anything. There is a truth to that. We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing – an actor, a writer – I am a person who does things – I write, I act – and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.”
Stephen Fry
The Rummy Writer 