Sometimes, epiphanies come in the most mundane of moments. Mine came to me when I was driving on the interstate, eating french fries out of a greasy, brown paper bag.
Lately, my every waking thought has been tinged by an aching, brutal nostalgia. It isn’t necessarily bad—just intense. I am nostalgic for my own childhood, yes, but also for the childhood of others. Those born before me, and those born after. I have become obsessed with early 2000s culture (more so than I already was), and nearly every piece of media I have consumed over the past few months has reflected this yearning. Things seem so much simpler. The flip phones, the fashion, the price of a cup of coffee. In the past 10, 15 years, everything has changed, and I’m not sure how much of it is for the better.
I don’t know what is coming in the very near future. I am a graduating senior, about to leave the comfort and safety of college life and move onto the absolutely terrifying world of adulthood. Real adulthood, not just living-away-from-home, being-old-enough-to-buy-alcohol, doing-my-own-grocery-shopping adulthood. This will be taxes adulthood, paying-rent adulthood, job-interviews-and-moving-across-state-lines-and-actually-for-real-being-on-my-own adulthood. I don’t know where I will be, what I will be doing or who I will be with. And I am absolutely terrified.
I’ve become so wrapped up in the comfort of my past, though, that I have forgotten to be excited for the unknown. Sure, it’s scary and unpredictable and sometimes it kicks you in the *ss, but isn’t that the best part?
While I ate my french fries, my Spotify decided to exclusively play music that I loved in 2018, when I was 16 years old. If you had told 16-year-old me who I am now, I’m not sure she would have believed you. Over the past five years, I have grown and changed and fallen down and laughed and cried more times than I can count. I can say with certainty that I am not the same person as I was in my junior year of high school. She is still here, with me, but she has grown and changed, too. I love many of the same songs that she did, and I watch the same TV shows and reread the same books that she did.
We are different from each other, too. I have different friends. In fact, only one of my current friends was friends with 2018-me. I have a different family. Not everyone who was here in 2018 is here in 2023. I like different things, new things. I live in a different city, in a different apartment with different furniture and different people. But it’s okay. It’s good. I love my life, who I am now. In 2028, I will be 26-years-old. I hope that she treats current me, the 21-year-old me, with the same kindness, humility and respect that I did with our 16-year-old self.
I know that there are steps that I can take to prepare for my future. Research, prep, organize. I can look into the cost of living in cities I am interested in, and consider whether I want to begin my career immediately or go to grad school first. But I need to focus on my present, too. I need to listen to the songs that I like currently, eat the food I am craving at this moment and laugh with the friends I am beyond lucky to have now.
This epiphany will stick with me perpetually, like the salt grains that stayed trapped under my fingernails after eating my fries. As I contemplate the future and reminisce on the past, I need to remember to stay in the present, too. As Beck sang in his 2020 song “Uneventful Days”: “Uneventful days, uneventful nights / Living in the dark, waiting for the light / Caught up in these never ending battle lines / Everything has changed much and it feels right.”