For so many weeks after the new year started, tiktok and twitter (the father and the son) kept showing me a video of curb your enthusiasm (the holy spirit) in which larry david gets mad at a pregnant woman at the gym for saying happy new year too late. I think so much of my existence would piss off Larry David but I still have so much respect for him, so I will be the person to say happy new year to you all on January 31, 2023. Tomorrow, nobody can say those words until Rosh Hashanah! I love the high holidays because they’re when I do the most romantically i.e. my first kiss was on Rosh Hashanah and I had a nasty situationship ending on Yom Kippur.
Besides Larry David not liking me, which we’ll decide here and now is fact and in the torah, I have lately not been liking me. Every single day, I wake up and go to the gym (brag) which I actually think is doing the opposite of what I want it to do. What I want is to be rail thin and look like I’m on my deathbed. What it’s doing is making me strong and have good stamina and huge thighs that are kind of tight in my favorite jeans. I actually bought new favorite jeans recently that I’ve worn every single day which is sooooo ok because I have a summer wardrobe and right now it’s simply not summer. Perhaps that’s why I don’t like me and I know I don’t like me because a huge part of my daily routine is grappling with whether or not to go off the rails and completely destroy my life, my relationships, my work, my school, etc. I live the most charmed life in the entire world, so I have nothing to blame but myself and of course ritalin, other people, the weather, people unfollowing me on instagram after I post a cute picture, that I never became a child star, and capitalism.
I can’t imagine what would happen if I took responsibility for myself in the way that is something I only owe to myself. I am really, really extraordinarily good at answering texts and emails and doing things for others, but I really struggle to make changes in self. But it’s also like would even I be interesting if I grew? Am I even interesting being not grown? I like to think I’m interesting and funny and then I can’t actually ever write anything because while I am funny, I am also very self-conscious.
I should maybe get a therapist instead of a substack newsletter but there’s a glitch in the universe: I can’t schedule an appointment through my insurance online! I look through all the names of doctors (the ones I choose to look into more are of course older Jewish women because nobody else should do therapy toward me) and then when I go to make an appointment, I have to call. The thing is, this exploration never happens during business hours because during business hours, I am busy doing business. I also am addicted to looking for chiropractors and gastroenterologists to crack my back and find something wrong with my stomach. I am so sorry to my parents’ friends who are reading this and probably so concerned about me! Don’t be!
Anyway, sometimes I imagine what it would be like to go off the rails because I love living in a society, so I would never actually threaten that! I would love to take to tiktok straight to cam and share all my thoughts and tell every single person what I think of them in earnest. I would love to run to people’s apartments and knock on their doors and demand they do this or that. I would love to run into Reformation and buy everything in their store and charge it to my parents’ credits cards. Of course, these are things I would never do because #consequences, but it’s so fun to dream — isn’t it??? None of this will ever come to fruition as long as every person I’ve ever met and even people I’ve never met give me constant attention!
I’m truly perfectly fine and ok and these are things that people feel and I’m, to borrow a phrase from my dad, “an aristocrat” and don’t actually know how to or what it’s like to do anything hard (emotionally, physically, mentally, socially, etc.). I think that feeling sad and crazy and restricted is a huge part of finding oneself as a person/artist/friend/lover.
I am probably in terms of my age and ability “ahead of the game” but I can’t help but always feel like I’m procrastinating on something. I am tangibly procrastinating on school (I have to write a pilot and watch like 7-10 full tv shows). I feel like I’m procrastinating getting a boyfriend or falling in love when that’s something I’m always trying to do just not actively. I feel like I’m procrastinating on my career (read: I have applied to 2000000 internships and there’s not much more to do and I also have a great job and am doing work I like).
I think my issue is that I have only lived in the moment one time when it was an assignment for religion class to live in the moment and even during that entire moment I thought “look at her…living in the moment!” I’m always living in what I said during a conversation 7-10 months ago or what my townhouse will look like if I’m ever successful and what my kid’s bar mitzvah theme will be. I think maybe everyone is but of course as a young person I am only supposed to think about myself. I think about what it would be like to be dumb and not care about things. I think that maybe I am dumb and don’t care about things. I think about how maybe I should major in something practical and work in finance so I can one day afford to eat. I think about how it would be cool to be famous because people you don’t know dm you with love. I think about how I’m going to be 20 and that’s halfway to 40 and I should have at least 3 kids and 2 husbands by now.
I think it’s healthy to feel sad and one time in 9th grade (one of the lowest lows in a girl’s life) I posted a really long finsta post about how crying was a release as though I was the smartest person in America. I love to cry at all events: my birthday, bar mitzvahs regardless of how close i am to the family, work meetings, class, family dinners, bedtime, and even on public transportation.
Sorry this newsletter was sad and unhinged and you might call an ambulance to my house, but please don’t because it’s so damn expensive. I hope everyone had a happy happy January and will have a happier February!
XOXO
