The Sunscreen Post

When I was in my early twenties, my oldest sister advised me that this decade of my life would suck.  To my recollection, she actually used those words.  One of the things I've learned in my supposedly sucky twenties is that advice is best when a) given only when solicited, b) strongly qualified as only applying to one's own lived experience, and c) very seldom as doom-and-gloom as my sister would have had it.  Another thing I've learned is that bad advice can in fact teach you something important: how not to give bad advice.

I started this blog when I was twenty-four, so it doesn't cover the entirety of my twenties, but it does cover a healthy and eventful swath.  Contrary to what my sister told me, the last ten years have not exclusively sucked, nor have they been perfect, which is to be expected: a mixed bag of spotty progress, minor tragedies, marked losses, major victories, and moments of quietly understated grace.  A brief sampling includes:

Sitting on the floor of my first apartment, after I'd signed the lease but before my furniture had arrived.  I'd brought the essentials: toilet paper, York Peppermint Patties, and a book, and I spent a few hours of a Saturday afternoon in a space that was mine.  Getting drunk one night out with a friend and calling my dad from the T on my way home, weeping because the Dartmouth alma mater had come up on my headphones and I still missed it so badly.

Getting my first tattoo with my best friend and eating cannoli with her in the North End.  Knowing in the pit of my stomach that I was about to be massively jilted by a truly bottom-feeding jerk after an amazingly romantic weekend, which included a trip to what is now my hometown diner.  Finding out that my grandfather had cancer, that my nephew had been born, and that Ikea really isn't kidding about that height limit in their parking garage.  Eating scrambled eggs while sitting on my kitchen floor after an uninspiring date.  On a different kitchen floor, staring at the REI logo on my socks, drinking scotch, and weeping.

Retrieving a wrought iron dachshund from a doorstep in Indiana, being introduced to Sherlock by a friend in Boulder, and pitching my thesis outline to my adviser, saving the conclusion like a third act twist.  Hearing my mother's surprised shriek as a can of tomato paste exploded on her in my Colorado kitchen.  Singing the harmony to one of my favorite songs while standing three feet in front of my favorite musician.  Laughing hysterically as the date, who would become my boyfriend, who would become the love of my life, planted a raspberry on my stomach on our first date.

The smell of the Bobolink trail meadows in the sun.  The rumble and bell of the B-line trolley.  The first taste of my first batch of pilaf made in my grandmother's frying pan.  The creep, and then the crash, of  smothering grief when I found out a friend had been killed.  And the absolute, unadulterated joy of looking at the Boston skyline across the river on the warm, sunny, and windy birthday of one of my best friends. 

I collect these memories like marbles: they are oddly self-enclosed, individual units of stored sensory perception, which I can take out, roll over in my hand, and admire.  And so, contrary to my sister's prediction, I have to say-- now a week out from my thirtieth birthday-- that no, my twenties didn’t really suck.  What this decade has been, though, is massively informative. 

So here is my advice, which admittedly is unsolicited, and which in every way is informed by my own experience and should be taken as such.  In a way, it's the advice I would've given myself ten years ago.  Of course, I probably wouldn't have listened, but for posterity, I leave it here:

1.  Be prepared: carry tissues, Band-Aids, and a Tide stick in your bag.  You'll never regret having them, but you'll sure as shit regret not having them.

2.  Invest in a good couch.  It's worth it.

3.  Ikea isn't kidding about the height limits in their parking garages.  Seriously.

4.  Hangovers become exponentially worse after you pass 23.  Be prepared to leave aside a full day, possibly two, to truly abject misery after truly epic indulgence.

5.  Regarding choices of fashion, haircuts, and tattoos, you should only listen to precisely two people: yourself and your best friend.  People, older adults especially, love to propagate their own style.  Screw that.  Find your own.  You'll look better and be more comfortable.

6.  I am directly ripping off the Sunscreen song, but I mean it when I say you are not as fat as you think you are. 

7.  Further to 6, practice being kind to yourself: ease up, quiet the critical impulse as much as you can, and give yourself a break. 

8.  Don't be rude.  It's just bad policy.  Other people need breaks too.  And you can always vent about your unsung episodes of magnanimity to your best friend.

9.  At the same time, stand up for yourself.  You can have an opinion-- many, in fact.  You don't to throw a gauntlet, but you also don't have to roll over either. 

10.  Only buy things you really love: things that make you appreciably, measurably happy.  A good gauge is walking away from it and if you're still thinking about it the next morning, go for it.

11.  Don't apologize for being a feminist.  Period.

12.  Figuring out the meals that you like to make and consume is wonderful.  Look things up.  Improvise.  English muffins can absolutely be incorporated into dinner. 

These last three are the hardest, and the hardest earned:

13.  Being alone is by far better than being with someone awful.  The longer you're with that person, the easier it is to believe that you don't deserve better, so get out.  Immediately.

14.  Make time for the people you love.  Email, text, call, tackle as soon as they're within range.  Every minute and every ounce of energy you spend interacting with your people is absolutely and entirely worth it.

15.  "Should" is possibly the most dangerous word in your vocabulary.  I've literally been in your shoes (knee high black boots with a kitten heel, if I'm not very much mistaken), and I know how easy it is to get attached to the idea of what you think you should have or what you should do because of decisions you made before or the expectations you had.  You have to do for who you are right now.  All of those "shoulds" are like roadsigns that point to a place in which everything has lined up perfectly, in which you've somehow made up for the past and simultaneously squared away the future.  That place does not exist, because things being lined up perfectly requires a stasis that is completely at odds with the way life actually moves. 

And believe me, it moves: it shudders, shuffles, lurches, careens, stumbles, glides, stomps, flits, meanders, and generally rocks the fuck out.

So there you have it.  This is what I have to offer; this is what I’ve learned.  I absolutely encourage you to take it, or to leave it.  After all, I can only imagine what my retroactive advice to myself will be in another ten years.  

Oh yeah, also: "Wear sunscreen.  If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.  The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience..."