What wants to die?

thoughts on trajectories and evolution and letting go

Junior year of college, I sat down in my advanced German literature class the first week of school, looked at the syllabus, and a thought hit me for the very first time: what the fuck are you doing here? 

I didn’t particularly love studying German. It wasn’t part of my future life plan (as in, move to Germany, or teach it, or become a BMW executive). But I had just spent six years of my life, including my precious university time that I’d be paying for until I was 40, in those classes because… why exactly?

Because when I was fourteen and it was time to pick a foreign language elective, I’d wanted to make out with a cute soccer player.

Being a German scholar was a life trajectory that, once I was on it, I never actually stopped to question. I was pretty good at it, and when it came time to pick college classes, I defaulted to it, despite the existence of a thousand other options. The more years I put in, the more I assumed the right next step was to just keep advancing, because American culture teaches us that linear upward progression is good, and I was very invested in being good.

But something happened in my seventh year of German, skimming the syllabus of books I didn’t want to read. The “WAIT! What am I doing here?” feeling that came over me was so sudden, it felt like a spell breaking, like Cinderella at midnight. What in God’s name am I doing in this pumpkin?

I left class that day, went to the registrar’s office, dropped all my German classes, and replaced them with studio art—a thing I actually loved, but hadn’t yet studied in college. In a shock to no one who knew me at all, it was a much better fit. 

---

Like most American GenXers (and at least older millennials), I grew up believing that one’s professional life, if plotted on a graph, was a line that should go up and to the right.¹

Not only did I underestimate (or not understand) how much the world had changed from our parents’ generation—that the days of working at the same company for your whole life and retiring with a pension were over—I also underestimated how much I, myself, would change over the course of my working life. That the person I am at age 47 would care about, want, and value totally different things that the person I was 20 years ago, or even 10.²

I have a clear memory of a conversation I had in college with my friend Tim, sitting on someone’s roof at a party, smoking Djarum cloves like a couple of extras from Reality Bites. I can’t recall what I was wearing, but it was 1996 so it was overalls and Doc Martens. We were judging someone’s annoying chameleon behavior—acting one way around one group of friends, and a different way around another.

Tim said something like, “I love how you’re the same with everyone. You’re just you, you never front.”³

He was calling me authentic—a compliment. And I remember my response, and how proud I was of it: “I know exactly who I am, I’ve been basically the same person since I was thirteen, and this is it.” I will be this version of myself forever, and obviously this is an extremely valuable quality.

I made the mistake of conflating authenticity with unwavering consistency, which (duh) are not the same. Consistency was a quality I was determined to wear like a badge of honor. Looking back with an adult’s perspective, I understand that this was because changing, shifting, would have meant admitting the old me had gotten something wrong. And I was extremely invested in never making mistakes, because I believed that getting it right the first time was necessary in order to be loved. 

Y’all, imagine if I (or you or anyone) were still the same person we were in middle school? I would like a one-way ticket to outer space, please, because sweet Jesus, no.

---

Since officially leaving my company last year, I’ve been consulting for them—a gig that will wrap up in the next few months—while I also wait out a noncompete agreement.

For the past several years, any time I thought about what I’d do next, I assumed I’d start another brand, or I’d consult with brands, or I’d teach artists how to build brands and make products, because these things represent a continued trajectory that leverages my last 20 years of work experience. I’m an expert at these things. They would bring in a bunch of money, which continues to be necessary for like, living. 

But now that the time is approaching to actually make a move, all these things feel kind of like registering for another German literature class. What in God’s name am I doing in this pumpkin?

I’ve been resisting this truth because part of me very much wishes I wanted to keep doing this stuff. Because I know I’m good at it. Because I’ve put in my 10,000 hours many times over, and now it’s time to reap the benefits (upward and to the right). Because it’s a clear way forward. Because it represents security. Because I worked super hard to get here. 

Because WTF do I do now, if not this? 

But this path was chosen by a different person. I love the self who started a stationery company, and the self who got a job at an ad agency in 2004, but I’m not her anymore. And when I get very still and honest with myself, I know I’m not here to live someone else’s life.

---

There is a post-it in my journal that says WHAT WANTS TO DIE? Every time I ask myself the question, there’s a new answer. 

Over the last few years, I’ve come to see—and can’t unsee—how many of the qualities that made me successful in my former careers were formed in response to traumatic conditions. I was hyper-independent because I learned early on that I had to be. I did everything myself because I didn’t think I could rely on other people. I was chill and “low-maintenance” and excelled and strived and drove myself into the ground because I believed these things were necessary in order to be cared for. There are more, but I’ll spare you. 

I relied on these workarounds and coping strategies because I believed they’d keep me safe. But in order to meet what’s next, not only do I not need them anymore, I have to actively release them: they’re holding me back from where I want to go.

In the releasing, my rational mind says “okay!” but my body goes FUCK NO, and then we fight about it. Some of the old beliefs are gone now, dissolved. But some of them are still making strong arguments for their continued residency in my head.

From 2019, the last time I went through a big, terrible-yet-ultimately-transformative-and-absolutely-necessary shift.

Evolution, like spiritual growth (basically the same thing) also sounds like a fun thing: who doesn’t want to evolve? But the truth is, the process of evolution sucks. It’s destabilizing and confusing. If you’re me, you cry a lot, often for no apparent reason while watching 90 Day Fiancé, and say to your boyfriend “I’m sorry I’m this.” 

But it will not be this way forever. I know this for sure.

---

I’ve written here a bit and talked on Quitted last year about the terror of being stuck in the deep middle place: the feeling of being in a very small boat in the middle of a very big ocean with no visible land to navigate by. I know I’m not alone in that feeling. But knowing it’s all universal and normal doesn’t make the process easier. 

I am constantly forced to remind myself that what makes it easier is not only managing to stop judging myself for being where I am (nowhere) and feeling the way I feel (unmoored), but also trying to let go of the desire to try and control everything as a way to try to feel safe. On the days I feel most freaked out, I notice my brain grasping for the feeling of control, wildly rummaging from topic to topic, like my hand fumbling around the bed in the dark, searching for my glasses. But a life is not something that can be controlled. 

“You are afraid of surrender because you don’t want to lose control. But you never had control; all you had was anxiety.” —Elizabeth Gilbert

American culture tells us the middle place should only be a quick stop on the way back to certainty. But what if certainty isn’t the goal?

After over a year of feeling very, very dead, I turned a corner a few months ago. I hoped it was permanent. It wasn’t. But it was enough to inspire a bit more trust that the boat is moving, and that even if it isn’t, the boat is an okay place to be.

People say spiritual awakenings are the same way: you catch a glimpse of the divine oneness and feel blissed out for some short period of time, and then you’re back to being an asshole when someone messes up your coffee order. Forward, backward, forward, backward. 

---

I was having kind of a shitty day yesterday and beating myself up for not having the same kind of confidence I did a few years ago. When I talked to Holly about it, she said, “We have this idea that our confidence trajectory is supposed to go up and to the right (just like every other trajectory) because that’s what we see modeled. People like Oprah or (fill in the blank) just seem to get wiser and more successful. But if you’re actually growing, it doesn’t happen like that.”

She was right; she usually is. 

I would like for the confidence-shaped negative space in me to be filled back up with something different: willingness, faith, curiosity, resilience, but soft resilience—like the earth, not like an MMA fighter. Because what I recognize as confidence is also the thing that made me want to build a business empire (and nearly murder myself in the process); it’s the kind of swagger-y assuredness so valued by capitalist (white, male) culture. It is the energy of being right.

What if this old kind of confidence is, in fact, gone—and what if that’s okay? What if not knowing, and not pretending to know, is the path now? 

What if, instead of trying to get back to being a version of me I recognize, I embraced moving forward into the unknown?

Thanks for being here, and thanks for reading.

1. Pick a career, start at the bottom, have 18 roommates and sleep in a closet (if you’re me and you spend your 20s in San Francisco), get promoted, make more money, get promoted, make more money, repeat, reach the top of your field and eventually retire and like, golf or something. 

2. Maybe this is because I’m a double Gemini so there are four of me?

3. Again: it was 1996