notes from this time two years ago
a past version of me, found in my drafts
I was looking through my Substack drafts and came across something I wrote in March 2024. I think I was maybe too nervous to post it that March, and also the March after that, and then suddenly it wasn’t March anymore, and it felt like the time and the moment to share had passed.
But it is March again, because time passes even though we never want it to, and I don’t exactly identify with what I wrote back in 2024 but it was how I felt at the time and there is something beautiful about that — about being able to look back at my words from over two years ago and transport to that era of my life. I wrote those words when I was 27 and I meant them so deeply in my core. I wouldn’t necessarily want to go back to that moment in time but I also miss that version of me, too.
Because of that, I am feeling bold enough to share what I wrote back then, and maybe that is only because I don’t exactly feel the same way anymore. The passing of time has a funny way of helping us take a step back and remove ourselves from who we were and how we felt at a certain period in time. I wish I could tell 27-year-old me that some things will change while others never really do.
My notes from March 2024:
The theme of this March has been:
Staring out the window of quaint cafes on early Sunday evenings, unable to help feeling as if everything you want in life is just out of your reach right now, or that there is a version of you out there who currently has everything you could ever want, but you don’t know how to find her or where to even start looking. Almost Googling “how to get where you want,” in hopes that WikiHow can meticulously guide you through changing every aspect of your life.
Seeing a former middle school crush at a hometown bar but learning he is engaged and suddenly not having the urge to say hello and see if he remembers you, and instead wanting to call it a night at 8:35pm.
Nostalgic daydreaming — wishing you were 17 and getting picked up from your parents’ house by the boy you can’t stop thinking about on a school night to buy huge cherry Slurpees and sit in his mom’s car in the empty parking lot. You’d laugh at each other’s jokes and confess your deepest secrets under the dim twitching lights of the suburban mall’s neon signs. Your biggest concern the next day would be dissecting every move he made and analyzing each word he spoke to decide if he could even potentially feel the same way about you as you do about him. A teenage routine you used to perform professionally and have almost been craving to put into practice again.
Cutting bangs and dying your hair and getting new tattoos because they are the types of changes you can instantly see, and lately you don’t want to wish time away but you desperately need to see your hard work pay off and big changes immediately happen.
Frantically calling a friend you haven’t spoken to in a long time while you wait for your train track to be announced in Penn Station and shedding a tear when they don’t pick up. Not being sure if it’s because you miss the sound of their voice or if you miss having someone you know will pick up the phone every single time you call. Making peace with the fact it may be a bit of both.
Wondering why anything you do never seems to be enough for yourself lately, and why you can’t celebrate the small wins and slow down enough to appreciate where you are.
March has been a month where things feel incredibly, frustratingly stagnant. Spring is so close and I am so far from who I want to be.
Until next time!
XO, Daelyn <3
A lovely piece- March is a weird time.