Youthful Idealism, The Kyle Richards Hang, and Hot Dude Obsessions
It’s been a really beautiful, strange, and jam-packed week. I have no idea if I’m even going to be able to fit everything that happened into this one newsletter, but grab a cup of half-caf, kick off your pants, settle in, and let’s see what happens.
The past couple weeks I’ve been grappling with what I want to call into my life in terms of goals and manifestations. On the surface, this has been so easy - I’m still 100% committed to completing as many writing projects as possible this year, and intent on not letting anything else distract me from this goal.
But working on my first writing project of 2024 - a project that focuses primarily on my life from the ages of 18-25 - and reviewing old journal entries that are included in it sparked something in me that I had long forgotten. I was so idealistic back then, and so, so adventurous. All I dreamed about was traveling around the world and using my skills to help people in economically-disadvantaged or disaster-torn countries, and then coming back home and writing books upon books about those adventures. I wanted to climb mountains and be a humanitarian and relief worker and then go to Oxford or Cambridge and do things that would help change the world.
Here’s a couple journal entries from that time:
and that self always included things like a writing career, world travel, global charity projects, going to Oxford or Cambridge for a semester or two, getting my Ph.D, etc. I wouldn't have let him let me give up those things, because I know that I wouldn’t have wanted him to have to love a lesser, less-fulfilled version of me.
But I fought back on that, because I had been so honest about so many key things - that I wanted to live a big, glamorous life; I wanted to travel; I wanted to go to a big exciting school when I finally was ready to go back to college; I wanted to do brave and potentially dangerous things for work (like disaster relief or working in human rights); and I wanted to write about my life as well as be a novelist. I liked nice things; I liked reality TV and tabloid magazines; I liked sad songs and sad movies and sad books that haunted you for years; I liked to smoke and drink and dance with my friends; and I liked raunchy comedies and swearing a lot.
This was me…then
I was already thinking through these old dreams when the 7 humanitarian workers from World Central Kitchen were killed by the IDF a couple weeks ago. I know there is a lot of criticism about how and why certain people cared about + paid more attention to the WCK workers than the people of Gaza; I get and agree with that criticism, and have definitely had to do some personal reflection and moral inventory around it. But I think it also caused me a very real moment of “What the FUCK am I doing with my life?! I was supposed to be someone who put aside my own privileged safety and comfort and do whatever I could to help people in places like Gaza, and yet here I am, complaining about how hard it is to live in one of the most privileged countries in the world, just because it’s sort of tough sometimes to afford my luxury condo?! When I was 21 and did that rice experiment at ASP*, I swore up and down that I was gonna always give at least 50% of my earnings to charity, and instead I’m feeling sorry for myself because my corporate contract work might not be enough this year to pay for another two-week overseas vacation?! Who THE FUCK have I become?!”
That’s me on the far right, teaching two of my youth group girls how we ate rice in India. The rice experiment was this thing we did while on an Appalachian Service Project, where everyone was divided into three groups during dinner. The first group got pizza, to signify that they were from first-world countries and enjoyed things like reliable health care and economic support systems; the second group got a bowl of rice to signify that they had most of what they needed to survive but were one natural disaster away from abject poverty; the third group, my group, got a cup of rice to illustrate that they lived in constant low-grade starvation, that mothers could reliably expect to either die at childbirth or lose at least one baby to malnutrition or disease, and that reliable education, sanitation, and health systems were either non-existent or constantly disrupted by war or political disaster. This experiment had a profound impact on me in ways I won’t go through here, but let’s just say it made me a VERY un-fun person to shop with, since I couldn’t go into a shopping mall for years afterward without thinking about all the money that could be going to starving children vs. fucking lotion sets at Bath & Body Works.
I realized that I had long ago lost touch with a fundamental piece of myself…the part of me who wanted to do good in the world, who wanted to give her whole life to doing good in the world. The part of me who was so determined to do something worthy and daring with her life, who was so fucking brave, who didn’t care if she had to live out of a backpack or scale a mountain or live on rice for a month, if it was all part of the adventure.
And now here I am, in my early-to-mid ‘30s, so pampered and soft and spoiled that I don’t even wanna walk up a single flight of stairs if there’s an elevator available.
And listen - there are parts of that young idealism that I’m glad to have shed. For instance, the me who didn’t realize how problematic and harmful volun-tourism actually is; or how I had been fed + bought into this glorified picture of the educated white savior who’s gonna save all the poor people in underdeveloped countries without doing any actual introspection about how she and her country + unearned privileges are actually at fault for those economic disparities. When I was in Egypt a couple years ago, I remember cringing over the old memories of all the absolute bullshit projects those old orgs would have our groups do just so that we could feel good about our “charity work”…projects that made absolutely zero positive or long-term impact to the communities and countries we were visiting. You know what actually helps? Money. From education to healthcare to political influence, the best positive impact one can make towards helping other global citizens all comes back to money…not white-washing the fucking dining hall of an orphanage.
So anyway.
The point is, all of that got me thinking about how I could integrate that young hunger for humanitarianism and adventure back into my life again (and do it in a way that is actually meaningful and impactful). I thought about my goal to do the Everest Base Camp trek, and how I could easily turn that into a charity challenge…use my training and trip to raise awareness and funds for a meaningful cause.
Which then brought me back to the realities of that trekking goal, which I have been putting off these last few months in favor of focusing on The Writing. Whether I do the trek next year or the year after that, I still should at least start doing the bare minimum of training. So I started plotting out a bunch of training treks I could do, and ordered them in level of intensity and altitude…and then got sort of annoyed and defeated when I realized that I’ve never even really been on an actual, legit hike in my life. Like, I’ve never even owned a pair of legit hiking boots, and yet I’m setting goals around hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc and Great Wall of China??? The only remotely local hike that I knew of was Barnes Bluff in Red Wing, and I’ve literally begged off of doing that my whole entire life, even when it was practically in my own backyard!
So I sent out a mini manifestation around partnering up with a bud or two that I wanted to actually go on a hike on + discovering some local trails that I could train on, then put my cute lil’ “Trek Training Trips” spreadsheet away and promptly forgot all about it.
A handful of days later, Katy picked me up early-early on Sunday morning to do what I like to call The Kyle Richards Hang, which is working out with friends early in the morning and then going to coffee after. Katy told me she wanted to take me to a park in Bloomington that was really pretty to walk around, and while I hate Bloomington, I agreed because at least there would be coffee and conversation as part of the deal.
I was envisioning a flat grassy park space with a man-made lake, much like the park by my house; instead, Katy took me to Moir Park, where you can join the Nine Mile Hike. My loves, it was BEAUTIFUL, and it was exactly what I had wanted to manifest. I don’t really know a lot about all the great trails and hikes around the cities because I’ve never cared about them before, but walking along the trails with Katy on Sunday morning, I started remembering all these great little wooded walks that my ex Chris used to take me on, that I could easily find again if I was thusly motivated.
I also had a little moment when I suddenly realized that some of the best times of my life have all been when I was going on long daily walks in some beautiful place. When I was 21 and working at Riverside, it was the nightly runs/walks along the country roads during golden hour, when I would listen to Chicago (the band, not the musical…like how dare you) and dream about my National Geographic-like future. When I was 30 and living up north for the summer, it was the long walks I would take on the ATV trail through the forest with my parents’ dog, Dutch, while listening to The Nerdist podcast and dreaming about the fairy tales I wanted to write. When I lived with Chris in Minnetonka, it was the wooded trails behind our apartment complex where I would walk Chris’ dog Ella and once again listen to The Nerdist while dreaming about writing and working in Hollywood. When I moved to Linden Hills in my late 30s, it was the daily walks around Lake Harriet while I listened to music and worked out scenes for the book I was writing.
So it was a big morning for me. A gift. I felt like I ended up doing exactly what I had been trying to do further above - touch down into some young, forgotten place inside myself.
I don’t know, exactly, where I’m going from here. I’m so determined to stick to my commitment to writing this year, but I keep going back to something my friend Karah once wrote to me about how I always try to define myself primarily as a writer, but that really I’m actually more of an adventurer.
“…and so writing is just part of the journey, it isn’t the GOAL. The grand sweep of life is your goal! Loving that grand sweep is your goal.”
And she’s right. I know at the bottom of my heart that she’s right. But I also feel like I can’t really fully enjoy that grand sweep of life - or even the pursuit of it - until I’ve completed at least a few of the things that are most important to my soul to complete. Which is why I made the decision to be 100% committed to my writing this year and temporarily eliminate all other projects and distractions. And maybe that’s a mistake… For once, though, I wanted to see what could happen if I put everything else off in service to my writing and books, instead of what I’ve usually been doing, which is put my writing and books off in service to everything else.
So maybe nothing changes until 2025. Maybe I don’t go on the EBC trek until 2026, 2027. And all of that is honestly okay with me, because while there are so many things I want to experience in life, I’ve also gotten really good at prioritizing those things.
But the walks, my friends. The daily walks and local trail hikes are a thing I’m going to start doing again and now, because seasons of those kinds of walks almost always feel like they’re in service to the magic of writing, instead of stealing focus from it.
But also only if I can go out for coffee afterward 😘
Things I’m Living For This Week:
Apple TV has been FEEDING me this spring:
First, Manhunt…which I didn’t think I was ever going to watch, since I have a sort of an aversion to Civil War-era themed media (it’s a long story). People on Twitter couldn’t stop gushing about the show, however, and I also find Tobias Menzies EXTREMELY sexy, so I decided to tune in one Friday night when I had nothing going on. Gentle reader, I was hooked after the first episode. It’s not the place you want to turn to for historical accuracy, and after last weeks’ episode I’m a lil’ worried the exciting pace is going to turn into aggravated frustration over President Johnson doing President Johnson things. But nevertheless, I will persist!
Until Bridgerton comes back in May, this’ll do to fill my ever-constant need for lush historical period pieces. Michael Douglas is quite watchable as Benjamin Franklin, and this show also introduced to me to Tom Hughes as Paul Wentworth, and dear reader? I am now O B S E S S E D:
Speaking of hot dude obsessions:
I know that some will probably be put off by the creative camera work and editing, and I don’t blame you: If it starred anyone else but Colin Farrell, I probably would have dismissed this show as a pretentious project from the worst guy you knew in film school. But it DOES star Colin Farrell, and so I love every single second of it and for that I will not apologize!!!!!
Another shout-out for hot dudes:
“Fantasy” by THE DRIVER ERA has been on repeat all this week, as has this video. Like, sorry for being a vibrant sexual being, everybody!!!!
Now That I Mention It:
Probably like most of you, I subscribe to a lot of different email newsletters for a lot of different reasons. But Meecham Whitson Meriweather writes one of the few newsletters that I devour the minute it hits my inbox. He is so incredibly funny and entertaining! Check him out and subscribe to his newsletter here:
These cookies from Aldi:
Holy shit, you guys!!! I can think of at least 5 people who are going to laugh out loud at this confession, but about a month ago I watched this TikTok this girl posted of her rainy afternoon routine where she showed herself baking a couple of cookies in the oven and then making tea before she got all cozied up with some blankets and a good book in front of her roaring fireplace, and I was like, “Holy shit, you can do that?!? Just make a couple of cookies instead of the whole batch?? 🤯” Gentle reader, it changed my life!
And these sea salt caramel and chocolate chunk cookies from Aldi are SO good!
Do you love animals?! PROVE IT!
A couple of weeks ago, the Humane Society was called out to what is now suspected to be a massive dogfighting operation. They rescued over 120+ dogs and puppies, most of whom are still in need of intensive veterinarian care. I started a fundraiser for the Humane Society on my IG profile, which right now only has raised $10.00 out the $100 goal…which is sort of embarrassing! But it’s way more embarrassing for my friends, family, and followers than for me, because I’m the one who donated that $10! Guess you guys don’t like dogs or puppies or fighting animal cruelty, I guess! Maybe some of you should try being a good person, like me!!
Anyway, that’s it from me this week! I’ll be back in your inboxes on Friday with more golden Bachelor recap oldies, so until then -
-AC