A List of 10
When I was 18, I used to be obsessed with “Everything at Once” by Lenka. In the words of Franz Kafka, I never wanted to to be easily defined; I’d have much rather eternally floated over other people’s minds as something strictly fluid and non-perceivable; more like a transparent, paradoxically iridescent creature rather than an actual person. But for better or worse, I’m down to earth in a way I never was at 18 and perhaps that’s a good thing for my chances of survival. I give myself almost a 100% chance of making it to 30, which I’d say would have been a solid 23.5% when I was 18.
The “400 Lux” to “A World Alone” sequence in Lorde’s Pure Heroine has always felt like a suckerpunch to the gut because it asks the question, what do you do when you love someone in the wrong way? And, when you unceremoniously cut it off for both of your long-term well-being, what do you do with the residual love left over? Where do you put it?
I visited my friend in Philadelphia over weekend and miraculously, she knew and even loved me when I was much younger, much meaner, and much, much thinner. It took a lot of effort on my part, but I’m no longer that person; she told me she’s proud of how far I’ve come since that time, and I was struck by the passage of time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m ecstatic neither of us are not the people we were at 18 (or still dating the people we dated when we were 18) but I guess I’m taken aback by how quickly things change and how some things stay the same.
Joan Didion wrote, “I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not,” and that’s what I’ve had to do with the worst things about me that I’ve been acquainted since before I became who I am today. I’ve discussed before about how I grapple with mortality and morality in the way most people don’t and this is just another example. At my worst, I’m vindictive and cold, and maybe even a bit dead inside; I don’t care what people I don’t love think about me (minus the people that control whether or not I can pay my rent), and I sometimes wish I did because maybe it’d make me somewhat more likable than I currently am. I’m still coming to terms that I’ll never be socially adept and astute in the way I look like I’d be, but I sometimes wonder if other people are as … upset at the world as I am just below the surface. They can’t be, can they? I can’t imagine most people could handle the magnitude of emotion that I endure on a daily basis, but I have learned to adjust to it.
Sometimes I think about how much my parents did to get me where I am today and I feel like I’m going to explode for the amount of love I feel for them. I want to be someone worthy of their efforts. I want to embody the American Dream™️ in more than just aesthetics.
The summer I was 19, I wrote a paper called “The Proto-Feministic Existence of Voyeuristic Sadness: Lana del Rey, How you get that way?” That summer, I was very sad and very very angry about being very sad, and I externalized my anger in a way 19-year-old girls are forbidden from doing by the unwritten rules of the society I lived in, and I sometimes wonder if it was worth the repercussions. Would I be happier today if I had shut the door on who I was? Kept the things secret which ought not to have been shared? Stayed poised and rational? Dealt with the disgusting parts of myself and my world by staying composed and performing my prescribed role? Poured the champagne without spilling a single drop.
Relatedly, I spent a lot of college invested in two guys, let’s call them Guy A and Guy B. So it goes, when I was sad about Guy A, I’d cry to The Way We Were and when I was sad about Guy B, I’d cry to Breakfast at Tiffany’s and when I was angry/sad about both, I’d yell at Gone With the Wind. For some reason, I did not have sustained fulfilling relationships with either of them.
During the January 6 insurrection of the US Capitol, a picture went viral of Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) holding Rep. Susan Wild’s (D-PA) hand as they sheltered in place on the gallery. From what I know about him, Crow seems like a good man, upstanding and honorable and kind, but what got me the most about the picture was Susan Wild’s story. Wild went to George Washington University for law school, where she dated Kerry Acker, but they broke up and she married Russell Wild and had two kids with him. Their marriage ended in divorce in 2003 and soon after, Wild and Acker reconnected, and he remained her life partner until his death by suicide in 2019. That photograph really got to me like there’s something about the sheer enormousness of caring for someone beyond ourselves, of standing up for what’s right in the face of so much wrong, for our countrymen before ourselves, and doing something good for our fellow human beings when it’d be easier to just ignore their suffering. Susan Wild’s kids are all grown up, her partner, the love of her life by any estimation, died by his own hand such a short time ago, and for some reason, whenever I think too much about her and the speech she gave on the floor of the House of Representatives, I cry and cry and cry.
A text I wrote when I was 18 included the following lines: “I’d be lying if I said I was fond of you, though I can honestly say I like you as much as I did when I first met you. Your external self is the caricature of the parts of my personality I try extremely hurt to not express, and we have the same taste in men so isn’t as if we were ever destined to be the next Meredith and Cristina.” I stand by what I said, and almost a decade later, I don’t forgive the recipient of that text and I never will.
If bad luck knows who you are, become someone else.