Hey, it’s me, Sarah. And this is Note to Self, a newsletter where I unpack whatever’s been in my notes app, tweet drafts, or group chat lately. Today, it’s my whole life. Sorry, drama.
I used to be obsessed with the question, “What advice would you give your younger self?” It’s good dinner party fodder, or touchy-feely, we-should-have-stopped-two-wines-ago fodder, or the-[redacted]-has-hit fodder, depending on your scene. If you’re inherently earnest, like me, you can answer it earnestly. If you’re a cynic, you can answer it cynically. If you’re too strung out on [substance of your choice] you can get a cheap laugh by answering simply, “Leave your goddamn eyebrows alone.”
Retrospective advice is kind of my thing, if you will. I’m a sentimentalist, and in the lead-up to my 30th, I have been especially sentimental. I spent the last few weeks sifting through the archives and ephemera of my life: piles of restaurant postcards with scribbled names and dates, a stack of journals, and a Ziploc full of photo strips and post-its. These are my original Notes to Self. Some of them are incomprehensible, the relevant context long lost in the ether. Like this one:
Others are, frankly, smarter than I remember myself. Most of them are something in between. Like this:
“What advice would you give your younger self?” Having spent some time with her recently, I have a new answer: I wouldn’t tell that girl shit. Not because I had it so figured out, but because not having it figured out was, and remains, the point. In fact, I’d watch my younger self make all the same mistakes 100 times over: the jobs that would break her spirit, the men who would break her brain. I'd let her go through it all exactly the same, as long as I knew she would end up here, with me, right now. This is how I know I really am getting older.
Here’s a list of memories I have. There aren’t 30 of them, and though some of them contain advice, it isn’t mine.
I’m 13, and I’m at Nordstrom’s with my grandma, early on a Saturday morning. We’re there before the store opens for a special perfume event. There are refreshments and all the perfume sales ladies are there to teach us about the fragrances. At the end, I’m allowed to pick a perfume of my own. I am by far the youngest one there and I’m shy, which makes me very charming to all the perfume experts. My grandma encourages me to pick whatever scent I like. “It’s important for a girl to have a nice perfume.” I take my time, making a few laps and doubling back between my frontrunners. My grandma is patient, sharing smiles with the other women over my head. Finally, I pick one. Magical Moon by Hanae Mori is a very rich, musky fragrance. A surprising choice for a tween, but I like that it’s different. It’s not clean like my grandma’s Chanel No. 5, or bright like my mom’s Happy by Clinique. It’s dark and romantic. I’m a shy little daydreamer, and Magical Moon smells like a life I can only imagine in fragments: nighttime in a city, high heels, long coats. I run my fingers over the beautiful blue bottle. The cap is a glass dome, with the texture of the moon printed on it in silver. I treasure it for years, wearing it only for special occasions, to this day.
I’m 29 and I am screaming “Fireworks” by Mitski as I drive through the Algarve in Portugal. I am traveling alone for the first time in my life and this afternoon I briefly lost possession of my passport. Fifteen minutes ago, I retrieved it from the kind housekeeper who found it. This all feels very symbolic but I’m not sure of what yet. In my rearview mirror I can see the sunset. There’s a delicate marine layer hanging in the lush hills behind me, glowing like an ocher halo
I’m 20 and I’m about to have my very first heartbreak.
My dad has spent the day patiently teaching me how to initiate a breakup. Right now, he’s making me a white Russian while I pout into my palms. I don’t want to break up with this boy, the one who passed me notes in class and took me to prom. He is the last of my childhood and I’m not ready to accept that it’s over.
Through my fingers, I tell my dad I cannot believe that something this painful - a breakup - is just a normal part of life. How can it be that people spend decades falling in and out of love, paying this price, over and over again? Why would anyone do this more than once? My dad smiles as he puts a drink in my hand and a kiss on the top of my head. “You’re going to go through this more times than you can count,” he says, “eventually, you’ll learn when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.”
I’m 25, and I’m standing in my first Brooklyn apartment. It’s empty now, and in a few minutes, I’ll leave my keys on the counter and close the door. I walk a lap, allowing myself to tear up as I drag my fingers over the counters and play a movie montage of the last four years. “I became an adult here,” I think to myself.
I’m 8, licking a mint chip ice cream cone next to my mom. We’re sitting in plastic chairs at the outlet mall on the Oregon coast. Her gaze is fixed on a family in the distance, mine on my dripping ice cream. “Sarah,” she pulls her cone from her mouth and I look up at her. “Someday, when you meet a man you want to marry, it’s important that he treats his mother well. Like your dad does.” In between licks I say, “Mom, I’m 8.”
I’m 19 and I’m sitting in an apartment in my college town. I have never drank wine for the express purpose of getting drunk and I’m not sure I’ll like it. My new friend Taylor pours me a glass of Barefoot Moscato and says, “You’ll like this, it’s basically juice.” She was right. Later in the night, Taylor and I will make each other laugh so hard that the guys with us will become uncomfortable. “We are going to be good friends,” I think to myself. I was right.
I’m 26 but I’m about to turn 27. I’m lying in Amsterdam’s Westerpark, making a list of wishes for my 27th year. This is one of them:
I’m 22 and it is my first spring in New York City. It’s a Thursday and I just left a happy hour at my trendy office. The sun is shining, all the trees are in bloom, and I’m walking down East 4th Street in a new dress. I’m so happy it’s almost alarming.
I’m 27 and I’m carrying a cardboard box down the stairs of my apartment in Amsterdam. There’s a dead mouse inside. About five minutes ago, a trap went off in my kitchen, but the mouse wasn’t dead, it was squeaking and thrashing in its trap. My boyfriend rolled over in bed and looked at me with a tender, pained expression. “I can’t do it. You’re the hunter in this relationship.” Oddly flattered, I got dressed and killed the mouse. I swept his tiny body into a cardboard box, taped it shut, and began the three-block walk to the nearest dumpster. There was no one on the street, it was perfectly quiet and still. The sun had just come up and the canal beside me was like a sheet of glass.
I’m 29, and I just threw my back out after carrying a Dutch oven full of mashed potatoes up three flights of stairs in heels.
I’m 20 and I’m in my bathtub, feeling sorry for myself. I have just learned the hard way that you are not supposed to fall in love with your rebound. My phone rings and it’s my little brother. “Hey, just checking in, you doing okay?” It occurs to me, for the first time, that he is worried about me. I have been a protective big sister my whole life, and the role reversal is stunning. He’s 16, but we’re peers now.
I’m 11, and I’ve just run up to my fifth-grade teacher. I point to my face, frantically - “Mrs. Hausman, is this a pimple?!” My girlfriends have swarmed around me to hear the verdict. Mrs. Hausman leans in to inspect my cheek and with a rueful smile she whispers, “Yep, that’s a little zit.” I turn to Chloe, Desirae, and Alicia with wide-eyed horror. It’s happening.
I’m 28 and I’m dragging my baggage through arrivals at JFK. In the distance, I can see my best friend, Rachel, standing in the sun. Her blonde hair catches the light and she waves one of her long, delicate hands at me. Rachel and I lived and worked together in New York for four years. In that time, we became something like sisters. We saw each other through every haircut and hangover but even through the worst of it all, we always saw the best in each other. Since then, I had moved to Amsterdam and she had moved to the West Coast. But a week ago, I called her to tell her I was coming back to New York with a broken heart. She flew across the country so that she would be here to catch me when I landed.
I’m 15 and I just kneed myself in the face practicing flip turns at swim practice. I am humiliated but I am also hopeful that the eventual black eye will make me seem more edgy.
I am 29, sitting at Brooklyn Public House with Tin. It’s the only bar still open at this hour on a Tuesday. I have known Tin since we were 11. We sat next to each other in Ms. Meadlock’s class and I volunteered him to read his short story aloud because I thought it was good. He has been repaying me that favor ever since. In college, he introduced me to the major that would become my career and the friends who became my everything. Now, we are both approaching 30 and, lately, whenever one of us says something declarative about life we follow it with, “And that’s 30.” Tin says, “This isn’t our first rodeo. That’s 30,” and raises his glass toward me. I think for a second. “Actually, I aspire to a life of first rodeos.” His eyes get huge — “And THAT’s 30.” We down our drinks.
I’m 30, and I’m thinking about the next 30 years. There are so many people I haven’t met, places I haven’t been to, arguments I haven’t lost yet. I am trying to make space in my mind for the memories mistakes I’ll collect along the way and make meaningful later. Mementos of a life well-lived. Right now, I’m in a rental car with a case of wine and enough Trader Joe’s cheese to feed 11 people for three days. I’m driving toward the ocean and I feel so small, so young, so lucky.
xx,
Sarah
masterfully composed as always - happy birthday sarah!
Happy Birthday, Sarah! Your writing is so charming. Thank you for letting us be a part of your world