Some notes on growing up
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Some notes on growing up
The heart wants what the heart wants
To the few people who have subscribed to the newsletter since the last dispatch: hello!
To those of you who haven’t yet and are considering it:
Thought I’d give it a shot. Lol.
For two to three days last week and for the third time ever in history, temperatures in Paris reached a little over 40°C. Those without air conditioning in their apartments (i.e. practically everyone) took on the challenge of strategically planning their days to avoid the heat (it was impossible). My solution was to run errands in air conditioned buildings and then cool off with a drink in an air conditioned café. I had no other choice but to keep moving—personally, August signals a number of changes: a move to a different neighborhood, a huge requirement to finish up my master’s program, and an upcoming internship.
As I was beginning to pack for my move a few days after the canicule, I was hit with a wave of nostalgia when I found a few letters family and friends had given me when I left Manila. Ten, almost eleven months have slid by since then, and here I am, packing up my life in boxes yet again. It’s funny, I thought to myself, that despite all these changes in my life, I still feel like the 17-year-old version of myself sometimes.
This exploration of who we were when we were younger is a theme I see from time to time in the things I consume. I remember reading about it in the earlier parts of Dolly Alderton’s Everything I Know About Love, and then a few years later, listening to her talk about crushes and unrequited love in Margaret Cabourn-Smith‘s podcast Crushed, which centers on this very theme. In one of her essays on Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, “Reality TV Me,” Jia Tolentino looks back at her time as a reality television show contestant and captures the pressures of adolescence, writing, “I constantly overestimate the impressions that I’m making on other people. I monitor myself, wondering how my friends and classmates see me, and then trying to control whatever they see.” Even the things I consume in other languages lately has centered around growing up. As my French has hit a plateau lately, I am currently reading the French translation of the graphic memoir Fun Home by Alison Blechdel. In it, she explores sexuality and identity, recalling in vivid detail family secrets and her relationship with her father. “It's said, after all, that people reach middle age the day they realize they're never going to read Remembrance of Things Past,” she writes. I already know it will stay with me for a long time.
I still relate to the 17-year old version myself in a number of ways. We still journal at least a few times a week, have the same manner of self-talk, and unfortunately, we still occasionally take an interest in boys who look like they could play lead guitar in an indie rock band. While I have matured in a number of ways (or at least I hope), we still want many of the same things.
It is always a pleasure to rediscover certain things that bring you back to your old self. But as you grow older you realize that you have to categorize these things into 1) something to hold on to even more tightly, as it brings you closer to who you’re supposed to be, and 2) something you have to let go of.
“When you grow older, you carry with you the beliefs of your mother and your grandmother, and then you realize that there are certain things that you have to unlearn if you’re brave enough to live the kind of life you want to life. Stop feeling guilty for moving,“ a wise woman with electric blue mascara told me not too long ago when I confided in her about the occasional guilt I felt, adding, “You’ve wanted this for a long time, and maybe it’s only now that you’re realizing this.“
Interesting articles I read last week:
The female body under the female gaze poses a monster problem by Lauren Elkin
A handgun for Christmas by Lisa Miller
Dreamers in broad daylight: ten conversations by Leslie Jamison
I will also leave you this part from an essay I re-read in The Gentlewoman’s Modern Manners, where Ann Friedman writes about the pleasures of the solitary drink:
If there are any great articles or essays you’ve come across lately, please share them with me! I’m always looking for something new to read.
Until the next love letter,
xx
Some notes on growing up
Create lots of beautiful memories in your new place. We miss and love you so much ❤️