Love Letter
When I thought about what to write in regards to my upcoming 30th birthday, I felt overwhelmed at the task. I could wax philosophically about what a big year this is for me (what with turning 30, becoming a wife, serving as Maid of Honor for my best friend who is also getting married); I could write a letter to child-Erika, that white-haired sprite that still exists within me. I could share an excerpt of a personal essay I’ve been working on about Legend of Zelda and my relationship with my father.
Instead I’m going with a half-formed, nebulous idea. I want to write something that feels truer to how I’ve been living my life these past few years, as time slowed and nearly stopped. It feels silly to say this, obvious, but I am not the person I was in early 2020. Then, I was 27 going on 28. On paper it doesn’t seem like that much of a difference, 27 to 30. But inside of those numbers lies the bounty of ways, big and small, that I’ve changed, that life has changed me. At 27 I felt myself waiting, always a little on pause; anticipating the next party, the next outfit, the next confrontation with the people I loved. Maybe it’s the years of formal routine (read, coffee, work, walk, smoke, eat, sleep) but I’m not so interested in waiting anymore. I’m less concerned about what comes next, perhaps because living in a pandemic modified my ability and, frankly, desire to look into the future.
I want my 30th birthday to be a love letter to the things that fill my days. I want life, as I age, to become an ongoing catalogue to the things that provide me quiet, private moments of glee. The little flashes of beauty, vignette fireworks that feel like the song August by Taylor Swift, graceful in their staccato bursts of life.
Last year I reread my favorite book, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. I wrote a substack about the book, about how much in my own life had changed since reading the book for the first time. The first substack I wrote, in September 2020, also discussed To the Lighthouse: Matches Struck Unexpectedly in The Dark is one of Woolf’s lines. Here’s what I had to say about that title then:
All we ever really have are matches in the dark. Moments. A look in your partner’s eye that you catch over lunch. The smell of street tacos. Hearing your friends’ baby laugh. Reading a really good passage and having it stick for seven years. I’m wishing each of you your own illuminations. I hope they carry you through.
I definitely still believe in that. I believe in actively observing and acknowledging, two things I know are essential for the writer. There’s not a walk that Hans and I take without me pointing to some bird, something blooming. I love this quality about myself but it can become obsessive, this need to breathe life into any moment of potential joy. Last year, I wrote:
As I age and contemplate my own shifting identity against ones of marriage and motherhood, I want to be less afraid of forgetting about a moment. I want to let beauty happen- a purple sunset, horses running across a meadow- without having to comment on it, without having to take a picture of it, without having to write it down. I want the happening of the moment to be enough.
Rereading this makes me smile. I genuinely see a change in myself here. I’m more likely to leave my phone behind on walks these days, less likely to respond to frantic, panicked texts. I still wake up early but I don’t wait for the sun to rise. It rises and I say oh, lovely, or I don’t. I know my capacity to observe will be impacted by motherhood (if and when that happens) and by whatever other obligations I will take on. But there’s a way to still take notice, even if I’m not running to my notes app to catalogue the noticing. I’m still learning how to do so. And this kind of learning, I’m learning (lol) is not gradable or submittable. It’s innate, a slow unfurling to a bloom. So I guess this substack is a love letter to the ways I’ve come to live inside of these sometimes bright, sometimes dark days.
So without further ado.
Dear……
Lexapro. Dear, dear Lexapro. How many jokes have been made at your expense? How many times have you been cursed for ruining libidos, crashing appetites? Couldn’t be me. I’ve loved you with loyalty since first meeting you in 2017. My brain feels healthier having met you. Oftentimes, if it weren’t for you in the form of a 10mg little white pill, none of what follows would be possible (I truly believe that).
Selfie Camera, I love you. And by selfie camera I mean the photos I take on my iPhone’s front camera of my face, my outfits, my cheeks pressed against my cats’. By selfie camera I mean the way I’m now unafraid to take pictures of my nude body in the morning when I strip my legs out from under the duvet because, dare I say it, I LIKE the way I look. I include selfies here because there were years I battled with my reflection in photos and mirrors. I waged war on my body and my appetite to achieve a flatter stomach, less round cheeks. It feels undeniably freeing to take photos of this body that I feel, finally, at one with. Photos are no longer maps of how to better my appearance but are instead a celebration of feeling hot, feeling young, feeling basked in light. I’m glad that even when a fake account using my work headshot to promote my upcoming ‘adult content’ I still love taking pictures of myself.
The Way My Two-Year-Old Friend, Olive, Says My Name. No notes.
Coffee, you glorious bitch. I truly cannot believe I ignored your existence throughout my college years. I was out there walking around in the snow, sad and listening to Gregory Alan Iskavov and not drinking coffee? How??? Anyway, coffee, you and I know the intimate moments we have at 6AM every morning. I’ll see you tomorrow.
Friends Who Text. There’s a particular group chat I’d like to note that has existed for years without ever once annoying me (Witches Council, you know who you are). So many of my closest relationships exist mostly through text due to geographical distance. The friends who keep up these important conversations, the ones who intentionally schedule facetime dates or say ‘hey, I’m at capacity and can’t text now but would love to circle back,’ the friends who don’t use texting as an emotional dump but as a safe space of reciprocal comfort and support. You comfort me through emojis and I am GRATEFUL.
Yoga. I love how transformative our relationship has been. As a girl I danced and did gymnastics, contorting my body into flexibility. In college I picked up yoga, found my body remembering how to elongate. I’ve used yoga to abuse my body, to nail an Instagram-worthy pose. And now I use yoga like I use a glass of water, not as punishment or training but as nourishment. My spine asks for a stretch and I open Yoga with Adrienne and I thank my body for its opening.
NYE 2022. Thank you for the beloved people who drank sparkling grape juice instead of champagne, for the shared joint and the charades.
Bookstagram!!!!! I know it’s the thing now to delete or take time away from Instagram (as I myself did last summer), but I find so much joy in the relationships and connections I’ve made via the godforsaken app. I also realize that many people struggle with comparing themselves to others on Instagram, that some feel overly-pressured to curate an online identity. Which, don’t get me wrong, I definitely sometimes face as well. But as a bitch who lived for Xanga in middle school and died for Myspace in early high school, I must say that I like Instagram! Sue me! Maybe I’d feel different if my timeline wasn’t full of people I respect and admire, smart readers posting their inner hurts and haunts vis-a-vis literature. One of my most beloved friends (@literarylauren on IG) was someone I found through Instagram, and now here I am sending her thirsty Adam Driver texts. @readkaylaread @lillysmusings @stephgetslit , I am frankly in love with each of you.
Hearing My Parents Laugh and Flirt With One Another For the First Time In My Life. This is a gift I’m not sure how to accept, but I will keep on trying.
Eating Taco Bell Once a Week and Also Sometimes Drinking a Green Smoothie. Look. I have drafts of multiple essays stored deep in the recesses of my Google Drive about my forays into dieting culture. I love grapefruits, but sometimes I have to pause before scooping into one’s pink insides because there were two years when I tried desperately to exist on grapefruits and granola bars alone. Who I am at my core is an Ohio-born eater who loves a fucking casserole and grew up eating fast food and Hamburger Helper. I used to be ashamed of how often I ate fast food but I have found some kind of fucking peace from just listening to what my body wants. You want a cheesy gordita crunch? Here you go! You need a vegetable because of too many frozen Tostinos treats? I’ll make ya a green smoothie bebe.
Weed. There it is! I love weed. There’s probably an essay here, too, if I’m being honest. Shockingly, I really hated my brother for being a stoner in high school, mostly because of my father’s alcoholism and my fear of addiction. I smoked a handful of joints throughout college (once in the parking lot with my best friend and roommate, once behind the gym in a bush) and graduate school, but I started smoking in earnest in 2016. I lived, then, alone in an unfamiliar city, and I was dumped miserably at the time, too. I started what became a ritual of smoking at night and watching Adventure Time. The combination, a big fucking warm hug, made it possible for me to sleep. Later, when Hans moved across the country and I once again found myself alone in that apartment, the only way I could get out of my panicked headspace of abandonment was through smoking. It was a private, intimate thing that I used to take care of myself at a time when I really, really needed it. And since then, especially after moving to a stoner-friendly city, I’ve grown to love this sacred medicine. I could go on and on about what smoking does for me, my anxiety, and my OCD specifically, but instead I’ll just say blaze up and also, sorry, Ethan, for never smoking with you growing up.
The Specific Happiness of Taking a Day Off Work and Going to Skylight Books and then Driving to Larchmont Wine and Cheese For the World’s Most Perfect Salami Sandwich.
Winston and Egg. My baby boys. Lately I’ve been catching the two of you licking one another when you think I’m not looking. Two old ass men became brothers. Egg, stop yelling, Winston, stop biting. Please live forever.
Home That I’ve Made With Hans. This apartment feels like a home because in it there are growing pains and heartbreaks. Little bits of care and shedded resentments sprinkle into the floorboards. I love the way our white curtains bloat in the wind, how green our plants are against our blue walls. I love our bed and how warm it is on his side. The balcony from which I can see the mountains. It is a gift to be so comfortable, so at ease; to do what I want, when I want, and to be surrounded by what makes up our life together.
Bookclub and Writing Workshop. A community centered around books is one that I’ve always longed for.
Birds, Flowers, and All the Other Little Beings I Notice On My Walks That Make Me Skip Down the Sidewalk In Actual Glee. I’m really glad these moments still happen. What a gift.
Happy early birthday to me. Happy Big Year. What a silly, pointless substack that I love so much. For no reason at all, here’s a picture of pirate-dance-costume Erika at her performance of Bad to The Bone by George Thorogood and the Destroyers.
this is just beautiful