Stop This Train
Musings on turning 25, Summer Girl by Haim, and Feeling Cringe
Turn 25 They Said
My past birthday was the first time I felt the real fear of getting older. I turned 25, and realized how much had changed around me, even though in the moment, things still felt the same. Getting older is weird in that you never think you actually will—not in a morbid way, but more so in an, “I’ve always identified as a 22 year old way, and now I’m closer to 30 than I am 16.” Hope that makes sense.
I’ve admittedly had a few restless nights about being ‘25’, which is both hilarious and also embarrassing, because I know it’s not old, but it still feels scary. To bring myself back down to Earth, I did some digging and found some thrilling facts that have made me feel slightly better:
Joni Mitchell was 25 when she released her debut album, Song to a Seagull (which means big things will probably also happen for me this year)!
Toni Morrison didn’t publish her first book, The Bluest Eye, until she was 39!
Ina Garden didn’t become the Barefoot Contessa until she was 54!
Moral of the story, I have time and so do you.
Summer Girl by Haim
Summer Girl was a bonus track off of Haim’s third studio album, Women in Music Pt. III (2021). I remember the first time I heard it, which subsequently always takes me back to that moment, too. I was freshly 22 when I moved to New York and strung along a few jobs that paid me (maybe) $100 more than my total rent. I don’t know how I did life then, but I did. It was the summer of 2019 (the single was released prior to the album for ref, babes), and everything felt hazy and exciting—as most things do when you’re 22.
New York wasn’t new to me, but this new ‘adult’ life was. With my odd jobs here and there that left me with a lot of lull time, a majority of my first few months in the city were spent sweating, and listening to this song, Summer Girl, as I got to know my neighborhood. The days were slow and hot, and this song offered up the perfect respite.
It’s winter right now, and my idea of warmth is when it creeps up to 40 degrees. But recently, when I’ve been in need of just a little bit of nostalgia and pseudo-warmth, I've pressed play on this one.
I Am Cringe, But Am I free?
I’ve been noticing how often I want to post something online, only to physically cringe at myself mere moments before pressing 'share.’ Though I can’t put my finger on when this exactly happened I have so many questions for myself:
Is this the one thing that doesn’t get better with age?
When did I start giving this much of a fuck?
Are these feelings of caring universal, or do I actually need to prioritize getting a therapist this year?
As we move through 2023, a promise to myself is to embrace my cringe, sometimes post things I’ll probably both regret and laugh at when I look back at it a year from now, and maybe discover that I wasn’t actually that cringe after all. (I just cringed at that last line.)
