Without You

Life goes on.

“I’m going to get my shit together in May,” I say to a friend over fries and spicy margaritas—my single-woman dinner of choice these days.

I’m always fantasizing about a better time to get my life in order. Hang the shelves that need to be hung. Finish writing that piece that needs to be written. Find that PCP instead of overburdening my local Urgent Care. I imagine an opening in my schedule, a moment where I’m not so overwhelmed. I picture it like a parting in the clouds, revealing skywriting that says something like, “You can finally organize your shoes now, bitch.” Wow, I can’t wait for that day. I used to have grander aspirations, but now I aspire to find the time to organize my shoes.

“Your shit is together, idiot,” my friend replies.

It does seem that way, doesn’t it? But, of course, I feel more behind than ever. Little dreams that came with being in a marriage have shriveled and died, and all the possibilities that came with that stability now feel so far away. Sylvia Plath was onto something with that fig tree analogy.

My husband and I didn’t have kids (thank fucking god), but we talked about it as a possibility. Now, the thought of meeting someone new, settling into a relationship, and procreating with them feels too momentous to actually happen before all my eggs rot away. Maybe I’ll simply let that fig fall from the tree.

My husband and I were constant creative collaborators, but we’ll never work together again. And our former projects, once so sweet to me, now feel sour. Another fig. The dream of owning a house, getting a dog, building our life—just more rotted fruit on the ground. So much can change so quickly in just a few months.

I’m going to be 34 in a few days. I am simultaneously enjoying the life I’m currently living—feeling more free and in touch with myself than I ever have since being liberated from my marriage—and grieving the life I thought I would have with my husband—the life my younger self imagined I’d be living by 34.

The younger me thought I’d be married with kids. I’d be financially stable from years and years of being a big Broadway star. I’d have chunky blonde highlights and confidently wear low-rise jeans. She would be so disappointed to learn that nothing panned out.

Instead, going out to brunch sends me into a financial panic. The closest I’ve come to performing on Broadway was marrying someone who got to live out my childhood dreams while I watched from the audience. I don’t have blonde highlights, but plenty of gray hairs.

I want to honor my younger self because I love her so bad. I genuinely think I’ll never be cooler than I was at 14—a chronically uncool age, but probably my favorite version of myself. In a way, everything I do, I do for her.

April at 14 was deeply authentic because it was the only way she knew how to be. There was no social media, and she was a little too young to actively try to appeal to the male gaze (though she had many, many crushes). She was without men or an algorithm to perform for—she just did whatever she pleased. She was weird and unpopular and sensitive.

She was the coolest girl in the world but was constantly told she wasn’t. She desperately wanted to be accepted but stubbornly refused to change the things about herself that made her unpalatable. She loved musical theatre and emo music, covering every square inch of her walls with magazine cutouts. She liked thrifting, spending time with her grandma, swimming, and writing in her diary. She had a big crush on her best friend, though she didn’t yet realize that’s what it was.

She wore her mom’s old clothes from the ’70s and never did anything with her hair. She was worried about being a good person. She was scared of hell. She was a vegetarian, partially out of love for animals, but also out of spite—because so many people said she wouldn’t be able to keep it up. She liked to do witchcraft before knowing what witchcraft was because, back then, she could follow an impulse without judging it—just do something because she felt like it.

I have changed so much in the last twenty years—and also not at all.

I hate that I didn’t make all of little April’s dreams come true. I hate that she, who was so full of hope for the future, would be disappointed with how things turned out and how she was treated. I think of little April being hurt when current April is hurt, and I feel like a failure for not protecting her.

But there’s another version of my younger self who would fucking love April now.

She would love that we live in New York City—ironically living an artist’s lifestyle like the characters in her favorite musical, Rent. She would love our weird little apartment filled with strange loot from our travels. She would be proud that we’ve written two books and many stupid, funny things for the internet. She’d think it’s cool we have a Tony Award, but she’d be more impressed if it were for performing.

She’d be happy I still love witchcraft, thrifting, and swimming. She’d be sad our grandma died. She’d be proud that we loved honestly and deeply, even if it meant being destroyed in the end. Even then, I think she understood that no love could be a waste.

Who I was led me to who I am—but it’s always been me. The evolution happened in many ways, but the core of who I am has stayed intact… which makes me love myself even more.

Now I think a lot about the future April—the me I have yet to meet. My experiences make me want to protect her in ways I didn’t protect my younger self. But if past and future me could talk without current me getting in the way, I think they would want me not to settle. To stay open-hearted and soft. To not let fear dull the sharp edges of my desire. They would want me to be greedier and grabbier, louder and less apologetic. They know that if I get hurt again, I’ll be okay.

I want to be brave enough to take off the suit of emotional armor and allow myself to feel the full spectrum of being alive. I want to stay soft and vulnerable but firm in my convictions. I want to look back and not see a museum of failures but an interesting, imperfect life. I may be destroyed by love again—but know I can always return to me.