In your early thirties, you’ll be tempted to cast off everything you thought and said and did in your early twenties.
Cringing, you’ll want to toss her in the dirt, separate yourself from her, reorganize the chaos into neat lines and file it away forever.
You’ll be tempted to be very rigid in your language. I am now x, I am no longer y. It’s a way to tangibly feel like you’ve evolved. You’ve grown. You’re on the right track now.
Because to be honest, the things you thought and said and did in your twenties were a little bit terrifying. It’s hard not to read the words you wrote, your convictions about the world, and not cringe a little. It’s hard to stand behind the opinions she so strongly sprayed at parties and not let your teeth crack as you grimace.
But it’s a mistake to overcorrect. It’s a mistake to completely sever yourself from her. From her hunger, from her fire, from her deep resolve where you have no fucking clue how the same person who once wore your skin was so sure. When you seem to these have more questions than answers, when life is nuance upon question upon nuance. Your opinions once looked directly down a one-way tunnel and now every little thing explodes in a kaleidoscope of perspectives. And it feels impossible now to speak how you used to, with certainty and clarity and ‘if only everyone could see it my way…’ (???)
What is my way, now? I don’t know. It doesn’t mean the hunger needs to disappear, the need to turn the world on its head and observe it this way and that.
She got us into trouble, that twenty year old self. She ran her mouth. She pulled out the tablecloth of her entire life thrice over, just to see where the pieces fell. You, all thirty-something and so wise now, now look back on her with the fondness of a befuddled mother, you can’t possibly place yourself in her. Maybe you just can’t remember how desperate you were, how clawing, for something more out of life. You can’t remember what drew her to act the way she did. But never forget you now live atop all the pieces she threw on the floor. Your life is good, because of her. You’re not as thirsty, because she did everything in her power to slake that thirst. You have the life you have, because of her. Because she didn’t hold back for a second.
I know you think she was just a passing hurricane in your identity and now you’re all wise and mature. But she was the foundation of all of this and it’s good to remember that whenever you cringe at something she boldly declared or wrote or posted at 22.
She lives in you, she’s a constant open eye in your life and you should want her to be there. She doesn’t control your actions anymore and life doesn’t change in yank-off-the-tablecloth moments anymore. It changes in thought out decisions that affect those around you. That’s okay.
Just don’t think the jagged path she cut is a person you don’t know anymore. She’s in your veins, she’s the storm that never ceases. And as the years go on, she’s the well you’ll drink from again and again. As you get complacent. As you get lazy. As you get too ruled by your fear. She’s there and she’s a pain in the ass and please don’t cut her off completely. You will need her at different gnarled cricks in the road, trust me.
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