Well, well, well

Writing is hard, and I’m just a blogger.

I turned 27 last Monday, and now I’m the same age as Marguerite, the woman who tapped my brother’s car (the one he so graciously lent me) when I was 17. We were on 39th street in KC, right next to the old Starbucks my mom and I would get our double-chocolatey chip fraps at. She was just barely buzzed, and had she not been a little bitch about it, we could’ve been on our merry way. 

Her boyfriend picked her up, and the PT Cruiser was left with a dent the size of my foot. Before the cops let her go, I had snapped a photo of her ID. Marguerite. 27. God, I hope I’m not that fucking stupid when I turn 27. 

Part of being disciplined is being honest with yourself when you aren’t being disciplined. I think I’m finally confident (or delusional) enough to know, with certainty, that I can be a great writer, but only if I am consistent. Like any good artist, or anyone with their hard-earned 10,000 hours, they know that quality comes with time. That saying make it exist before you make it good holds weight, and I would’ve assumed after enough ERP therapy that my perfectionism would’ve melted away at the same rate as my compulsions. At this point, I think it’s safe to say it’s more of a personality trait.

The mediocre perfectionist: creates nothing, is full of critique, if not for the world, then themselves, although they’re one and the same. 

When I’m asked if I feel 27, the answer is a resounding yes. Not out of dread, but absolutism. Sure COVID shaved some years off of all of us, but I felt so stunted going through life leaning into OCD fueled self-doubt that I couldn’t ever feel like a true adult. It’s been a year and a half now after being diagnosed and getting treatment, and while I feel better and sharper, I’m still a baby in the grand scheme of things. With or without OCD. 

There is now this strange, loving quality that I feel like I haven’t had before. Now, uncertainty feels less like a threat and more like an old friend I can walk side-by-side with. 

The idea of making mistakes doesn’t terrify me anymore, and the concept of being mediocre in ORDER to become better feels exciting: and now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good. Yes, Steinbeck. You found me at 13 with The Pearl, and again at 27 with East of Eden.

In fact, being a terrible runner has made me a better one. Struggling to run a full mile and continuing to struggle until I wasn’t anymore made the journey of completing my first full mile all the more rewarding; it’s the journey that’s the reward, not the destination, right? 

I visited home this past week and reflected on this. 

It was the biggest week for my job. We’d been planning and talking about it for months. Multiple releases, assets, key beats, and conflicting, confidential timelines–and I took unpaid time off to go see my mom and cat. 

Does my career feel as fulfilling as I would’ve hoped? The versions of myself when I was a teenager, when I was in the corner of coffee shops plotting on how to leave home, or when I was siloed in my Glendale studio, crying about being a year and a half in and nowhere close to where I wanted to be, would say yes. Even now, can this version of myself understand that on paper, I’d accomplished the goals I’d set out to achieve? Yes, and yet… 

Life feels insatiable. Maybe that’s the best way to put it; maybe that’s the best way to experience it too, and I just haven’t come to terms with it. That unrelenting desire to learn more, to consume more knowledge, and to have a deeper understanding of the world and my place in it is so damn frustrating. 

My younger brother has moved into his first apartment, and I took the liberty of working out in his cardio room. I jogged on the treadmill, looking out of the floor-to-ceiling windows at the newly renovated, and first-of-its-kind entertainment district railroad bridge. The little world that felt so inescapable as a child had changed on me, and I felt betrayed, even though I had left it first. As if, in my mind, because it had never grown that way before when I was there, it would never be allowed to after I wasn’t.

The metamorphosis of what I used to call home unfolded without haste. I went from missing my cat every few months to missing my grandparents forever. My uncle was given a terminal diagnosis of just no more than 6 months and died no more than 6 weeks after, leaving his kitchen unrenovated and the front steps unpainted. I walked into my grandparents’ house for likely the last time, and it felt so much bigger without them in it. I’d never noticed how much of life they’d acquired together in 90 and 94 years, realized in furniture, tchotchkes, and stray cats that still reside on their back porch.

I took a moment to linger in the bedroom they used to put me down for naps in. Across the hall from the other bedroom, where my younger brother would always fall asleep even though he always promised me, this time, we’ll resist! No naps! I’d sneak over, peep through the keyhole, and roll my eyes at his gentle snores before making my way back to my room, rummaging through drawers I thought I knew the full contents of. I’d lean over the old black vent and let the soft air blow in my face. I remember thinking to myself it would be a memory I’d keep forever: Standing here. Soft air, sometimes warm. Time passes by so slowly, and I get so bored and wish it would pass quicker. How much longer until my future?

___

Back in Crossroads, I sat at a bar with Jenny and sipped on what I reckon was the strongest espresso martini you could legally sell. We talked a lot about the future and the danger, as well, of trying to rush to it. What happens when you give up on the friction of life too quickly, and opt for the easier, more certain route. 

Of course, life is never certain, but walking around Overland Park and seeing strollers carrying not two but three children at once caused a stir in me. Young parents. Not younger than my half-brother and my new nephew, who is currently in the developmental stage of communicating solely with lung-bursting screams. I’m a little wiser so as not to judge as much, but not wise enough to rid myself of the pity none of them asked for. Why now? Why so early? Why at all?

Yet here I am, with the career I clawed my way to, still unhappy. There they are, Zoe Trio stroller and all, seemingly more content than I’ve ever found myself to be. There’s some general understanding that once you have kids, your life is never fully about you anymore, and maybe the removal of oneself in that manner is just something I’m not meant to understand, either quite yet or frankly, at all. 

___

I get the late-20s to running pipeline, finally. It only took me 5 days. 

When everyone in your world is getting married, having kids, satisfied or unsatisfied with their career, lost, or becoming unlost, and you’re confused about where you exist or should exist in all of this, one thing is certain: your long run is on Saturday morning, and under no circumstances can you opt out of it.

Sometimes it’s hot and painful. Other times, it’s cloudy, you’re well rested, and your IT band isn’t giving you hell. Either way, you are determined to accomplish something today, and since you're training for your first marathon, you aren’t all that concerned with time or pace. The next hour or so may be grueling, physically, mentally–but then you’re done, and there’s this weird thought that springs in your head: The only place I have to be is right here. The only thing I have to do is what is being asked of me today. Garmin will mark your tribulation as complete–you are free to go.

So maybe uncertainty has felt less hellish because of this. The application of this thought process in every other facet of life. The emphasis on the journey and all. Understanding that time passing can’t be a source of fear and staring too intensely into the future causes distress, as does reflecting so deeply into the past, causing sorrow. Undoing that deep-rooted, accelerated, and childlike desire for everything all at once. Having more wisdom to know the answer to my childhood question is it’s right here, all the time.

The inquiries will still be there.

I want to know if/when I will direct, if/when I’ll write my book my mom keeps asking about, if/when I’ll write the scripts too, if/when I will be married to the only person I’ve ever wanted to marry, if/when we’ll move, if/when it’ll be abroad, if/when we’ll have the life we and I have envisioned and most of all, how it’ll happen. Questions for the universe that bear no answer until the time comes. And until then, the only place I have to be is right here. The only thing I have to do is what is being asked of me today. In this case, writing–blogging–in hopes that with the growing perspective that life bestows on me, actual experience, and better discipline, eventually I’ll have the answer to those questions. 

Cheers to 27. Cheers to Marguerite. And all that to say, the scratch on my 5-month-old Corolla proves I am also, in fact, that fucking stupid.

Sincerely,
Elena