I recently heard advice for appreciating where you currently are in life, by recalling who you were 10 years ago and asking whether that self would’ve been impressed by who you are now. I was 25 then, and tbh I don’t know what the fuck would’ve impressed me then. I was obsessively watching Jay Z (formerly Jay-Z) on Fade to Black, which maybe means that my ideal future involved taking center stage at Madison Square Garden with R. Kelly by my side. That self didn’t care about museums (or really much art that wasn’t hip hop) and would’ve have been able to tell you what a curator was. My 25 year old self saw poets who were in their mid-30’s, bewildered as to why they couldn’t/wouldn’t perform gut-spilling poems at poetry slams anymore. My 25 year old self thought 35 years old was old af, and wasn’t impressed by old people. My 25 year old self was envious of Chris Brown for blowing up at age 15. My 25 year old self was generally broke but still managed to scrape the funds to invest in issues of GQ because it made me feel grown up (but not old). My 25 year old self thought eating shit tons of fried tofu was me being a health nut.
But my 25 year old self did want to be in love – though my 25 year old self thought I wanted to be with Lisa Bonet. My 25 year old self didn’t know how how important it was to see my parents often, and felt like a 35-minute drive was too far for frequent visits. My 25 year old self thought that adulting meant lapses from family. My 25 year old self once compelled my dad to ask, “So do you only visit us to do your laundry?”
But my 25 year old self made music more often than I can dream of now. And wrote more too. And wasn’t so cynical about the state of the world. My 25 year old self was content with less things and simpler things. My 25 year old self was down to stay out past 2am even if he didn’t plan to that day.
In my 20’s, my vision of my future was unrestrained and went as far as my imagination could go, and even though that seemed endless then, today I find myself doing things far beyond what I could fathom. I think my 25 year old self might applaud what I’m doing now, but more in like a “good for you but that’s not for me” kind of a way. Sometimes we don’t really know what we want until we have it. It would be fine if my 35 year old self impressed my 25 year old self, but part of being in your 30’s means not giving a fuck what people in their 20’s think about you. In fact, I if I really start obsessing over what a 25 year old numbskull high off his ego and obsessed with fame thinks of me, I hope my 45 and 55 year old selves come over and slap the shit out of me.