396. Meddling

What advice would you tell yourself? That’s a trick question because you’re younger self doesn’t *care* what some old hag from the future wants to tell them. And that’s okay.

This episode was based on an essay Nora sent out in her newsletter. If you don’t subscribe, check it out! 

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Nora: I’m Nora McInerny and it’s going to be okay.  What would you tell your younger self?  It’s kind of a dumb question because your younger self really does not care.  They are not interested in the musings of their older selves. You are simply an abstraction. You are a vague essence. Jumping back into time would only disappoint your former self.

No matter how impressed you think that they might be, they are not impressed. They thought that you would be, I don’t know, different,  hotter, maybe more successful, definitely better dressed.  No, no, no. Your younger self is cursed to walk the path that you have already walked, rejecting all the cheat codes that you hold in your hand because they didn’t ask you to time travel just to tell them that they’re doing it wrong.

But oh, man, if I could. Oh, man, if I could knock that skip proof discman out of her hand,  pull her shoulders back, put her chin up.  If I could press into her palm  a list of all the men and boys from whom she should run.  If I could pull her hand back from the metaphorical hot stove  before she pressed her palm to it.

If I could push her out of the way of the metaphorical traffic that is about to flatten her,  I would  and then I wouldn’t even be here.  I wouldn’t be here to tell the story.

I wouldn’t even live to regret it.  I would evaporate into the ether. My presence would be erased by my meddling.  I would be here, but I wouldn’t be here, you know? I wouldn’t be me, not this version of me.  I would be whatever uncanny valley version of me was created by a life without basic conflict, a flat character, a lifeless character, really a bore.

And I tell you this because I need to tell myself this often. As a parent, I as a person whose codependency has led her to believe that all the world’s a nail and she’s the hammer.  The people around us might not be as lost as we think.  They might want to walk their own crooked little path instead of the one that we paved for them without even asking if they wanted a paved path, without asking how they felt about asphalt, concrete, gravel.

I don’t know, you can make pens out of a lot of materials.  They might not be as lost as we think they are, the same way that  I wasn’t all that lost when I was younger, now that I think about it. Even if I didn’t know exactly where I was going, because yes, I printed the MapQuest directions, but then I left them on the printer in the library.

I wasn’t lost.  And even if they are, or even if I was,  they’re still getting somewhere.  So let them go.  Let them do it their way.  I promise you, it might not be the way we want it to be,  but it’s going to be okay.