I have two itches left to scratch in my life. Don’t let me fool you, I have many, many things that I want to do before I am old and wise and fabulous (I plan to age with spunk). But, there are two “big” things that I must do, otherwise a small seed of regret will be planted in my chest, watered by the bitter jealousy I feel towards others who went out and “did it”. That seed will grow and grow and grow into some twisted, stinky shrub, poking me every once in a while to remind me of my own cowardice. I’ll become irritable, numb, or worse - I’ll unknowingly project my regret onto others and it will be painfully obvious to everyone except me. I’ve seen that before in adults and it’s really quite embarrassing.
I watched a movie this weekend with this guy I know, we’ll call him Peter (I guess now that more than three people read this blog, I should respect the privacy of the people in my life). His brain could not be more different than mine and I find it absolutely fascinating. Talking to him is like studying abroad in a faraway land of quantitative reasoning and logical puzzles. Peter had come over to watch The Godfather, which he picked after complaining that I always make him watch girly movies. Once he found out The Godfather was three hours long, his immediate next choice was an Aubrey Plaza movie. Reader, you tell me, whose fault is it that we keep watching girly stuff?
The movie was My Old Ass, which is about an 18yo girl meeting the 39yo version of herself. Of course, the young character wants to know everything and all the old character wants to tell her is to slow down, enjoy the moment, and avoid this one boy named Chad. I found the film pretty uneventful until the end, which hit me so hard that I physically curled up into a ball and buried my head into a pillow. You win, Aubrey.
The film poses the question: if you know that you’re destined to lose, is it still worth it to love? Timely film to watch, considering half of my recent blog posts have been about this matter. Seems like all I can think about anymore is love and loss, I guess it finally is cancer season. The film leaves the viewer with the understanding that choosing between love and loss really isn’t even a choice. The heart refuses to be wrangled or tamed; it will fall miserably into whatever it pleases, no matter how hard one begs it to show restraint.
The film prompted conversation, so Peter and I discussed the same things that every other 20-something was probably discussing on their steamy Friday night: fear, regret, The Hunger Games, and loathing. We had opposite opinions on the idea of meeting our 39-year-old selves. To him, it was a foolproof way to eliminate risk and indecision. To me, it seemed like a fast-track to taking all of the magic, excitement, and growth out of life. I guess these are reasonable conclusions when you consider one of us thinks like a computer and the other wears their heart on their sleeve.
As we went back and forth, questions of dread and desire filled the room. I asked him what he wanted out of life, he asked me how my answer to that question had changed with time. We’re both young enough to feel unbounded, but old enough to know that we are not invincible. All of our choices add up to create the things that become our lives and the weight of that is both thrilling and debilitating. So much so, that Peter put his head in his hands and exclaimed, “YOU COULD JUST THINK ABOUT THIS SHIT FOREVER AND THEN END UP DOING NOTHING AT ALL.”
Just wait until I give him another girly recommendation and make him read about Sylvia Plath’s fig tree.
He’s right, though. The nice thing about being in your early twenties is that everyone repeatedly tells you that your whole life is ahead of you, it’s all just beginning. Now that I’m turning 26, I’m hearing that less and less. One day, people stop telling you that your potential is limitless. No longer great for your age, you are just your age. Then what? What becomes of you once you’ve lost your novelty?
A few years ago, I decided to leave a very suffocating world whose constituents believed themselves to be gods. It was tempting to succumb to their self-serving enchantments, but I was pretty miserable. I knew that I had to work up the courage to leave, despite everyone telling me that I had a golden ticket. My departure resulted in people either pitying me or viewing me as a complete idiot; I know this because they told me repeatedly. I would be remembered by most as too soft, too dumb, or too lazy to cut it. For a brief second, that was how I began to think as well, wondering if I had just royally fucked myself.
It was a pretty stressful time for me, allow me to shed some color. As I’m trying to figure all this out, I was couch-surfing in Manhattan, living out of a suitcase, rejecting an NDA that was being shoved down my throat, and having to keep all of this a secret from just about everyone. Oh, and my two best friends just told me that they’d been sleeping together for months behind my back. Conditions were prime for me to let the self-doubt demons win.
Instead, what I found was a new kind of freedom, the kind that can only come from going out on a limb and trusting that you’ll land on your feet. Novelty be damned, you really can just do whatever you want, whenever you want, regardless of who’s telling you anything different.
Except, you can’t belt Not Ready to Make Nice for an hour straight. You will get a noise complaint from your apartment building threatening a $50 fine.
Developing a confidence in my own discernment has been a long journey, but a rewarding one. I’m still trying to be bold enough to demand the life that I want, but a few years ago I would have been too chicken to even try. What terrifies me most in this world (besides roaches, death, and microskirts) is regret. Regret because you stayed put when you should have moved on, because you never made the art you thought you could have created, or because you lived your whole life chasing someone else’s target. The idea of harboring resentment for a situation that was within my control is just so effing grim. Like I said earlier, it makes you ugly.
The real reason that I wouldn’t want to talk to my 39-year-old self is because I hope she has nothing to tell me. I hope that she walks without yearning for a course correction, because she knows that she built her life on her own values. Obviously, there are things that I wish ended differently when I reflect on my life to this point (hellooooo bad hair-dye job of 2019). But my 15, 18, 21 year-old self made those decisions and she did the best that she could. I couldn’t go back and give her a cheat code, she wouldn’t listen (honey blonde WAS her color dammit). There were lessons that I hadn’t learned and parts of myself that I hadn’t yet cultivated. Anguishing over this is a sunk cost. Trust me, I’ve tried. To live without grace for your past is to live in a prison of your own design.
I’m turning 26 in a few weeks and the word of this year is going to be “honesty”. My word of 25 was “abundance”, where I challenged myself to shed the scarcity mindset that had plagued my first 24 years on this earth. Good feelings, people, and things are plentiful. Finally, I really believe that the universe is something to embrace instead of fear.
Now it’s time to get real, bitch. If I’m the arbiter of my own fate, what do I want to do? How do I strike the balance of living a happy, fun life and ensuring that I’m challenging myself to grow and evolve? How can I make sure that 39 year old Margo doesn’t need to come back and tell me anything at all, because she knows we gave it the best damn shot we could?
I’ll circle back with you on that one, promise.
***
While I don’t think an older version of myself is coming to chat with me anytime soon, I do know of another deity that’s about to descend into my life. And that, reader, is our Lorde and Savior, Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor. Stream Virgin out this Friday the 27th xoxoxoxoo
*For legal purposes, this is all a big fat fictional story. Obviously I never thought honey blonde was my color.
Seems like all I can ever think about anymore is love or loss… whip smart writing…. Much more feminine than I would’ve expected ! But in all seriousness. You make me laf laf laf and sorta want to cry a bunch too. I love your wild mind…
Living life boldly, unapologetically, and true to yourself is a lot harder than people give you credit for. It takes courage to be our boldest selves but the step into the darkness knowing that we can always create our own light provides more comfort than any finance bro self help book ever could.