30 before 30 :: the letter

Dear 20-Year-Old Kelsey:

Let’s just get this part out of the way: here’s what’s not going to happen in the next ten years.

You’re not going to get married. You’ll believe, deep in your bones, that you’ll marry your college boyfriend. You won’t. That breakup will be painful but will be the first time in this decade that you truly listen to what you want and do something about it. You’ll believe, even deeper in your bones, that you’ll marry a man who made you believe in love at first sight. You won’t. You’ll be buried by the heartache for a while, but will eventually see — and believe in — a world beyond it. 

You’ll be glad you did not rush to fit into a timeline you thought you should follow. You’ll be grateful you did not sacrifice parts of who you are for someone else. These will be the first moments of listening and trusting your gut. There will be more.

You’re not going to have a relationship with your dad. On every birthday, you’ll hold out hope that you’ll hear from him. You won’t. You’ll talk twice in these ten years: before your college graduation, where he’ll promise to take you out for a drink since he won’t attend, and at your grandfather’s funeral, where he’ll finally buy you that drink. His absence will shape you — you’ll talk about it to your mom, your inner circle, your therapist. But it will not define you.

You’ll get to a place where you feel the grief less, where you can release the anger, where you can move toward acceptance of what is. You won’t let go, but you’ll hold it lightly. Be patient; it’s coming.

You’re not going to have it all figured out. You really won’t have anything figured out at any point, really, even when you’re certain you do. You believe that there is a linear path right now — this guides you in almost everything you do. If you do this, then this, then this, then you’ll be there. But then you’ll change your major a few more times, you’ll have your world flipped by travel abroad, you’ll change careers. Uncertainty will always scare you, but it will be less and less as you move through each year. You’ll learn that there’s not really a “figured out” destination that you (or anyone else) arrives at.

None of that will happen for you this decade. But here’s what will.

You will see beautiful places. Rwanda and India and England, the skyline of Chicago and the mountains in Colorado and the beautiful coast in Cannon Beach. You’ll reckon with the privilege you have to get an education abroad and travel for fun and have paid time off. You’ll reflect on what it means to feel at home, what it means to call a place home. You will find your people in all of these places, and find new parts of yourself, too. 

You will date. Or, at least, you’ll go on dates. A man you’ve met once will surprise you at the airport with a cup of coffee and flowers. You’ll donate to a canvasser who stops by your door, and let him take you out for drinks. You’ll meet a man on a dance floor at your favorite bar and stay in touch for seven years. You’ll learn about yourself and more about what you want from every date, every kiss, every human.

You will have life-changing friendships. Life-saving ones. Your dearest friends at 20 will still be yours at 29, and what a miracle that will be — to have a decade of history together. You’ll build new connections along the way, write letters and FaceTime and spend hours over coffee and Thai and wine. They’ll listen to you jabber on about the same old things you’re unwilling to change and love you anyway. They’ll be the safe places you can cry and practice vulnerability. They’ll nudge you, each time, toward the truest version of yourself.

You will grapple with depression and disordered eating, and you won’t tell anyone, though you wonder if you should. You’ll discover the ways you self-sabotage when people try to care for you, and understand how your quirks and deeper-rooted issues show up in your days. You will agonize over what you should do in the world, over who you should be. You will wonder if you should look a different way, if you should have chosen a different path, if you should, should, should. The shoulds will consume you for a long time.

But you’ll get to a place where you can say — and mostly believe — that the ‘shoulds’ you have in your mind are not helpful to you. Or to anyone else. You’ll try, every day, to keep them quiet. It will, every day, be a work in progress.

You’ll sing in so many karaoke bars, you’ll start and stop and start therapy, you’ll think you want to become a pastor. You’ll get emergency surgery in another country, you’ll read poems that make you cry, you’ll get a master’s degree. You’ll call your mom, you’ll kill some plants, you’ll start this blog.

You’ll guard your heart when you should open it, and give your heart to people who don’t deserve it. You’ll sit with people in their deepest pain, and find moments to celebrate with them, too. You’ll change your mind about so many things — tattoos, sex, meat, religion. Socks, capital letters, coffee, technology. You’ll make mistakes. You’ll do many things right.

So much won’t happen this decade that you thought would. And — even better — so much will happen that you can’t even imagine, things you don’t even know to wish for that will come true. You’ll learn that you can try to plan and control all you want, but that there’s really no use. You’ll repeat this to yourself and, slowly, slowly, learn to hold things lightly, to loosen your grip — if only just a bit. 

And, at 29, you’re going to sit down to write a letter to yourself. You’ll pick up your old journals from that year, giggle at your absolute conviction in one entry and your utter confusion in the one the next day. That is your life — both/and, all the time. You’ll look back at this decade and think, “Yes. This was it. This was mine.”

This decade is yours, dear one. Eyes open, heart wide, bold and gentle. Pay attention to it all.

I promise you, you won’t want to miss a thing. 

All the love,
Kelsey

30 before 30 :: the books

I’ve always loved reading but, like many others, college reading and assignments forced me to stop reading for fun. I rediscovered reading in the latter part of my 20s, ironically, when I was working full-time and in grad school full-time. My job required too much of me, and grad school on top of that was depleting my humanness. I ached for time to myself, not having to worry about how 18-year-olds’ choices affected my sleep or how APA citations impacted my grades. 

I started reading again, sometimes waking up at 5:30am to get an hour in before I had to start on that paper or respond to that duty call. It was time just for me, before the rest of the world woke up and required something of me. I have vivid memories of sitting on my couch in my apartment on the 9th floor of Ondine Residence Hall, reading a book and watching the sun rise out my window.

Reading doesn’t feel like fun anymore, like just a hobby or a pastime. Reading has saved me from nights of loneliness, especially in this last year of the pandemic. It’s helped me witness lives outside of my own, pushing me to acknowledge my privilege and power and the shitty systems in our world. And every book, in some way, has stretched me to learn new things about myself. Books are crucial to my life, a requirement that allows me to show up better in the world. It sounds dramatic, but dang — it’s true. Just like I need a cup of coffee in the morning, I’m a better human when I make time to read.

The circumstances of my 20s were the perfect conditions for reading as much as I did: I was single for most of this decade and lived alone for most of it, too. I leaned into my introverted side and preferred Friday nights curled up on my couch with a book. I became a morning person and learned to wake up a few hours before work, with nothing to do except what I chose.

My reading habits will change in this next decade, I’m sure of it. I hope that one day, I have a partner whom I live with, who goads me to put down my book to watch his favorite movie for the fifth time or who whisks me off the couch on a Friday night. I hope that one day, I will have children running around my house who will steal away my morning peace, but give me the opportunity to reread the Junie B. Jones series.

Maybe this next decade will allow room for all of it. The quiet and the chaos, the solitude and the family, the time to read squeezed alongside the rest of life’s big, messy moments. I’ll hold onto both possibilities: grateful for the books I’ve read so far, hopeful that there will be many, many more. 

And so: here are the best books I’ve read in the last decade. Like choosing songs, narrowing these down was hard. If I’ve counted correctly, I’ve read over 330 books since 2011. I only know that fact because I’ve kept track of every book I’ve ever read in a Google Spreadsheet, which made it easy to remember and also reminded me that I’m a little bonkers.

Memoir:

1. Tiny Beautiful Things x Cheryl Strayed

2. Untamed x Glennon Doyle

3. Between the World and Me x Ta-Nehisi Coates

4. Gift from the Sea x Anne Morrow Lindbergh

5. When Breath Becomes Air x Paul Kalinithi

6. The Bright Hour x Nina Riggs

7. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone x Lori Gottlieb

8. How We Fight for Our Lives x Saeed Jones

9. On Writing x Stephen King

Nonfiction:

1. Love Wins x Rob Bell

2. Bird by Bird x Anne Lamott

3. The Crossroads of Should and Must x Elle Luna

4. Attached x Amir Levine & Rachel Miller

5. Daring Greatly x Brené Brown

6. The Road Back to You x Ian Cron & Suzanne Stabile

7. Missoula x Jon Krakauer

8. Eaarth x Bill McKibben

9. Bad Feminist x Roxane Gay

Fiction:

1. The Poisonwood Bible x Barbara Kingsolver

2. Americanah x Chimamanda Adichie

3. The Round House x Louise Erdrich

4. All the Light We Cannot See x Anthony Doerr

5. Gilead x Marilynne Robinson

6. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine x Gail Honeyman

7. Where the Crawdads Sing x Delia Owens

8. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue x V.E. Schwab

Poetry:

1. Devotions x Mary Oliver

2. Milk and Honey x Rupi Kaur

3. Citizen x Claudia Rankine

4. Good Bones x Maggie Smith

you'd already be dressed.

This story is about going on a date, but it’s not actually about that. It’s about much more than that — listening to your gut, burrowing deep into your knowing, and being sure enough of it to trust it.

It was the fall of 2018. I’d recently moved to the Fargo-Moorhead area, I’d started a new job, and I’d re-downloaded Tinder for the who-knows-how-many-ith time.

This “download, swipe, delete” is a common storyline for women in their 20s. It’s a throughline that connects every single millennial woman and the reality that showcases the complicated ways we try to find connection in this world. Download, swipe, delete. Pause. Download, swipe, go on a date, delete. Repeat.

We hear this story from another woman. We nod. We understand. It’s rough out there, especially on the screens. There are men with large fish and men with large egos, men with only shirtless selfies and men surrounded by other men so you don’t actually know which man is the one named Derek or Zach or Joe. So when you find someone you’re excited to talk to and get to know, it feels rare. Because it is.

One weekend while visiting Megan in the Twin Cities, I was in a “download” phase. I had Tinder on my phone and swiped a bit. I matched with someone and felt that excited buzz. I did not live in the Twin Cities at the time, but I was upfront about that. We texted quite a bit on the app. Then we moved to actual texting. Then we added Snapchat to the mix and the fact that we can communicate with humans in our lives on countless apps is one of the most exhausting parts of being human in this era.

Jack (we’ll call him Jack) was funny and witty and kind. He had a socially-conscious job. He had hobbies that were intriguing — hiking and board games and listening to NPR. He seemed to exhibit emotional intelligence and there was not a single fish in his profile photos. I thought, “Huh!”

So, the next time I was in the Twin Cities, I decided to meet Jack. We’d go out for dinner and drinks that evening, around 6:00pm. It was a plan. It was a date!

Except, all of a sudden it was 4:30pm, and I was still sitting on Megan’s couch. I hadn’t showered, though I desperately needed one. The five outfit options I’d brought with me were still tucked away in my suitcase. My nails, which I’d vowed to paint before this date, were still chipped.

I told Megan that I wanted to go, but I was still sitting here because I was just nervous! And because it’d been a while since I’d dated! And because the last person I’d talked to on this dating app had sent me not 7, not 8, but 13 messages in a row once before I finally responded. I told Megan that I’d get up and start getting ready so soon. I’d get up in just a few. It was only 5:15pm at this point; I still had a solid 30 minutes!

Her reply? 

“If you wanted to go, you’d already be dressed.”

As soon as Megan said these words to me, I nodded and thought, “Huh.” Because how many times in my life have I been so excited for something, so ready to go, that I could hardly wait another instant? The night before school when it’s impossible to go to bed. The moments before publishing something on my blog. Even other dates, where I showed up 15 minutes too early and awkwardly waited in my car for 21 minutes so I could walk in a casual and acceptable five minutes late.

But there I was, unprepared and unshowered and, apparently, unenthused about this date. My body and my gut were telling me that I didn’t want to go; I had to let my mind catch up before I accepted it.

Now, I’m sure if I had gone on that date, it would have been fine. I did feel like a bit of an asshole for cancelling so soon before. I apologized profusely and explained what was my truth: I thought I was ready and feeling it, but I was wrong. My body was telling me so. I couldn’t show up and fake it.

And that’s become the threshold — reminder — for trusting my gut. Would I already be dressed? Because in this decade, I’ve learned that my gut is almost always right — especially with romance. 

It’ll tell me when I should keep moving forward even when it doesn’t make sense, like dating someone who was moving across the country two days later. “Do it,” my gut said. It’ll be worth it!” And it was.

It’ll tell me when I should step back or stop, like when I went on a blind date with someone who spent 45 minutes telling me about how the Illuminati was controlling the Earth (and that the Earth was actually a snow globe!). “Evacuate!” my gut said. “You do not have to stay and listen to this!” So I left.

I’m amazed at how often I try to convince myself the opposite of what my body and my gut tell me. It’s not always that simple and laid out there for us, but sometimes — it just is. Sometimes all we have to do is get quiet, listen, and ask our own version of the question:

Would I already be dressed?

30 before 30 :: the songs

These are the defining songs of the last decade of my life.

They aren’t necessarily my favorites. There’d be some overlap but, mostly, that would be a different list. These are the songs that shaped me, that found a spot in my heart and stayed. These are the songs I have a visceral reaction to — they bring me back to moments, remind me of places, or make me think of humans who, even if they’re not in my life anymore, helped create who I am.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

There’s Hamilton. Of course. For half of this decade, I listened to this album more than anything else. I know every word and I worked embarrassingly hard to be able to kind of rap ‘Guns and Ships.’ I sobbed to ‘Burn’ in the back corner of a theatre in Chicago, fresh off the biggest heartache of my decade. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing or where I am, ‘Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story’ will make me cry every time. This musical has pushed me to write, create, and take chances I didn’t think I could (or should).

There are the songs from college: ‘I Won’t Give Up’ is a song I can’t *stand* now but was all I listened to when my college boyfriend and I broke up. ‘Call Me Maybe’ brings me back to the middle of the crowded Old Broadway dance floor, buzzed on Wonder Woman shots and hoping I’d run into Cute Justin, my rebound crush. ‘Some Nights’ reminds me of the endless runs that Megan and I went on the summer before our senior year, and the talks we had as we tried to sort through what the hell we were going to do with our lives.

There are the Portland songs: ‘This Is The Beginning’ is Steph and I in our empty apartment, before we brought in our haphazardly-assembled furniture and before we made a life in that city. ‘There Will Be A Light’ is sitting in the pews at Salt & Light Lutheran Church, a building that became my community.  ‘Rivers and Roads’ is my final drive away from Portland, through the Columbia Gorge when I wondered what the hell might be waiting for me in Minnesota.

There are the songs that accompanied me on the big lessons of this decade: ‘The Climb’ reminds me that I shouldn’t run a half-marathon if I haven’t run a single mile in a long while. And that I don’t actually like running long distances at all. ‘Give Me Everything’ by Pitbull and ‘Bitch, I’m Madonna,’ ironically, remind me about deep friendship and the lifesaving role of my circle. ‘Heavy’ reminds me not to abandon myself for anyone or anything that makes me feel inferior.

I could add 31 more songs to share stories about from this decade. I could make lists of lyrics or books or quotes or places or even the food I’ve consumed that’s somehow shaped me these last ten years. Maybe I will, and maybe you should too, even if you’re not turning 30 on April 1st. If anything, this exercise has reminded me that everything has purpose. I believe it’s all part of shaping who we are, even if it feels small or insignificant at the time.

When I listen to ‘I Can Change’ on repeat for a month straight? That’s probably going to help me believe that I’m capable of change. When I reread ‘Tiny Beautiful Things’ every year? Those words are going to stick close to me and come to me when I need some wisdom. The fact that I’ve had the same salad for most weekdays of the past four years? Well, at least I’m getting my vegetables. It all stays with us, inside of us somewhere.

And. One last thing. It’s not a fair question to ask of myself, and yet, my very favorite song on this list? ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’ by Whitney Houston. There are so many core moments from the past ten years connected to this song: it’s been my karaoke selection in so many cities, singing my heart out to a crowd of strangers and watching them sing along with me. It’s the song I dance to in my bathroom as I get ready for an exciting or hard day. It’s an immediate mood booster when I hear it out in the world, like in the grocery store or in the middle of a workout class.

And while this song is lighthearted, its words are also a reminder of a journey I’ve been on this past decade. Because I do wanna dance with somebody, and I do want to find someone who loves me. But another journey I’ve been on in my 20s? I’ve learned how to love and dance with myself — and that’s been just as worthwhile.

hello, my name is...

“I have to think about it.”

I stared at him and kept my mouth shut. I thought, “Maybe he means he has to think about what he wants to say to me right now. He wants to really get it right and so he’s taking time to think about it.”

Silence.

I kept staring at him and kept keeping my mouth shut, though my eyes were slowly narrowing and my lips sucking themselves right back into my mouth to keep myself from talking. I thought, “Okay! He’s still thinking. That’s fine. I am a human who is full of patience and understanding. I am not annoyed or sad, but I am actually glad he’s taking the time to really think about his response to my question.”

Silence, still.

The question I asked wasn’t, “What’s your favorite song in Hamilton?” or “What should we cook for dinner tonight?” or “What are your thoughts about aliens or God or the concept of mass incarceration?” These are the questions you’d need some time to think about. 

The actual question I asked doesn’t matter that much. It may have been, “What is this relationship for you?” or “Are you willing to show up for me?” or “Do you care about me?” I had asked all of those and then a few more vulnerable ones. His answers were all something similar:

“I don’t know.”
“I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
“I have to think about it.”

Regardless of the wording of the question, those are not quite the words you expect to hear from a human with whom you have any sort of romantic relationship. Or any meaningful relationship, for that matter — friendship, coworker, or otherwise.

First: What?! Second: Ouch.

While there is not a one-size-fits-all, step-by-step guide, Merriam-Webster definition of love, or dating, or relationships, I sense that there are at least a few shared truths that we hold as important. We want someone who we like spending time with and who likes spending time with us, too. We want someone to talk and listen to and who will listen to us, too. Someone who makes our lives better than they were without them, whatever our definitions of “better” may be. We want someone we can show up for, and someone who shows up for us. We want someone who is steady in how they feel about us, is clear about much they care for us, and someone who takes in all the complicated parts of us, the good and the bad and the weird, and responds accordingly.

We want to be seen.

I have an embroidered patch on the whiteboard above my desk. It looks like one of those name tags you get at a networking event:

Steph sent me a digital mock-up of this patch last August, during a moment when I was at my wit’s (wits’?) end. Later, in a ridiculous, sleep-deprived, lightning-speed text message thread, we dreamed up a life where one day, when we’re roommates in a nursing home, we’ll wear matching denim jackets with hundreds of matching, embroidered patches. Patches that represent our friendship, our lives, and the cores of who we are. This patch would be our first, capturing so many of those complicated parts of us.

So I bought a real-life version of that patch for Steph and then bought one for myself, too. We said that we should wear these words as a name tag every day so that anyone who encountered us would know who we were, and would be invited to respond accordingly.

Hello, I know who I am in my body and my soul (and I hope you see that knowing, too). Hello, I am not only comfortable with feelings but I’m going to TALK about them (and I hope you’re willing to, too). Hello, I drink a dangerous amount of coffee each morning and yet I am level-headed and can get shit done and am calm in a crisis (and I hope you recognize my contributions, too). Hello, I know my worth (and you should recognize my worth, too).

Hello. This is who I am. See me, or I’ll see you riiiiight out the door.

Because when someone sees you, they don’t need time to think about things like if they want to text back or make time to see you or how they feel.

And the people we invite into our sacred lives -- the family we stay connected to, the friends who become our chosen family, and especially the people we invite into our calendars and beds and hearts -- they need to see us. Every single one of us deserves that from the people we hold near to us.

He and I were talking through a screen when he couldn’t answer my questions. I was at my desk, looked up at my whiteboard, and saw that name tag in my line of vision. Bright red, staring me down, nudging me to come back to myself. And I thought, “He doesn’t see me. He doesn’t know who I am. And it seems that he doesn’t want to try. So why am I?”

I took a deep breath. And I told him that no, actually, he didn’t need to think about it. That in itself was an answer. And I wasn’t willing to wait for someone who didn’t know, on a gut-level reaction, that they wanted me. 

And while I’d like to say it felt immediately empowering to realize and name that, I hung up and cried -- the shoulder-shaking, are-these-tears-or-is-this-snot? kind of crying. Just sobbed into my lap for a good 10 minutes because -- despite what I knew deep in my core about worthiness and despite looking up and whispering to myself, “Hello, my name is Sexy Empowered Emotionally Mature Caffeinated Calm Woman!!!” -- it hurts when someone you’ve opened yourself up to, who you want to see you, is unwilling or unable to do that.

Even if it breaks our hearts and makes us cry or scream, we must walk away from those who do not see us, and those who aren’t willing to try. Even if we’re tempted to, instead, change ourselves because maybe that version will be seen -- to dye our hair or to not ask the question or to pretend we like the things they like that we actually do not like  -- we have to leave. We have to cancel the happy hour or skip the holiday gathering, have the breakup conversation or another hard one, put distance between them and us, or -- in this case -- hang up for the last time. 

I got out of my chair and went to get a Kleenex to sop up the tear-snot. I looked in the mirror and, despite the blotchy face and hazy eyes and achy heart, saw myself. That hurt, yes, but I looked in my own eyes and knew it would hurt even more to have kept going on like nothing was wrong. To keep going without being seen.

And then what? What do we do in the wake of not being seen?

We find those who do see us. We must hold on tightly to those who really, truly see our whole selves, who are willing to sit in the muck of life with us as we navigate our own, forever-changing versions of “Hello, my name is…” The ones we call in the aftermath of a conversation like this, who can grieve with us in the pain and celebrate with us for trusting our knowing, our worth.

They are the moms and sisters and best friends and maybe even the lovers, the mentors and bosses and sometimes even the unexpected ones (the baristas or the writers or the long-lost-loves who show up again, years later). They are the ones who want to bear witness to all the complicated, wonderful, raw parts of us. They tell us that they do, and they show up.

And they don’t have to think about it. Not for one second.