Not Me Becoming My Own Big Sister
reflections on growing up
I’m at that stage of adulthood where I avoid going outside between two and four in the afternoon: when school’s just let out and the streets are swarming with adolescents, the city gets a little hectic for my taste. I forgot this a couple weeks ago, when I went for a walk to work off my 3pm slump. The park was filled with students from the nearby high school, making noise and lollygagging, which is the whole point of being a teenager. I was walking the loop in a pink matching set and taking a call with my earbuds when a group of teenage girls called out to me: “It’s giving rich mom!” I think teenage Black girls are the pinnacle of cool, so naturally the comments have stayed with me and I may soon be adding them to my resume.
Rich mom is a goal I’ve yet to cross off the list, but I do think that I’m firmly in cool aunt/big sister territory, something I may have subconsciously been training for my whole life. This past week, as I wrapped up recording my podcast and watering my plants in my city gal apartment, it occurred to me that I’d become my own older sister, the figure I’d always wanted in my life but never had. I’ve been blessed to have an incredible and supportive family and I’m very close with my brothers – but if you’ve ever been the only Black girl in predominantly white spaces, then you understand exactly what I mean when I say my experience and theirs were not the same. I’m the only girl in my family, number three of four, and throughout my teens and even into my early twenties, I was desperate for an older sister – a woman who was older than me, and therefore more knowledgeable and worldly. I wanted someone who was close enough to my age to really get what I was going through, but far enough removed to have the perspective to say “I’ve been there and it will get better.” Obviously, she would also be stylish, hilarious, very charming and cool, but these things were less important to me.
Of course, “it’ll get better” was exactly what my mom, the only adult female I had in my life outside of teachers, would tell me – but I didn’t believe her (A teenage girl? Not believing her mother knows something about life? Groundbreaking.) But my mother couldn’t wrap her head around my utter lack of interest in first-gen approved "safe” careers like medicine, law, and banking; my even greater disinterest in the domestic labor I was frequently told girls had a special duty to master; my curiosity about alternative modes of living and being. Now that I’m older, I can see that I was fixated on an imaginary older sister because I wanted to know it was possible to live the life that I wanted: creative, freeform, non-traditional, and most importantly, fun. Even though people now take issue with the phrase, it’s true that representation matters: it’s hard to believe you can achieve what you cannot see.
But the big sister did not materialize, ready to offer advice on balancing a corporate job and my dreams without losing my mind, or prepared to scoop me out of my crumbling first big girl apartment to let me live in the spare room in her penthouse free of charge, which is what I imagine big sisters do. And so I fumbled my way through my twenties telling myself the things that I’d hoped someone else would tell me, which turned out to work just as well. I traveled to become more worldly (and will soon get back in my globetrotting bag, Inshallah). I read and took courses to become more knowledgeable. I took professional risks, getting jobs and quitting them and flaking on others and ghostwriting and working on my own stuff and abandoning my projects and selling others and embarking on a journey of trial and error that’s given me a media career that’s still shaking itself out – but gives me confirmation that I’m on the right path all the time. The penthouse isn’t quite here and the wardrobe needs some work, it’s true – but they call life a journey for a reason. The closet full of archive Versace will make its way to me in due time.
I’ve been thinking a lot about being present (which is maybe why I’ve been writing about it so much), and how it’s the only way to really enjoy life: making the most of this instant, and then the next, and then the next, and rinse repeat ad infinitum until you’ve lived a life. This can feel at odds with progress and self-improvement and goal smashing – all the things I think on and write about frequently: how do we enjoy this moment to the fullest while also making sure it’s preparing us for the best next moment? I’m still figuring that out, but I think this is part of it: taking a moment to appreciate where we are and how far we’ve come, instead of only focusing on how far we have left to go.
Happy June everybody! As we start wrapping up the first half of the year, I’m feeling introspective (though when am I not 🥴) and I want to make this space more of a checkpoint for all of us as we try to make the most of our lives. I’m launching weekly threads to chat and share reflections, plans, and goals for the week and I hope you’ll share along with me!
I also had a new piece go live for Feeld this week, on nostalgia and the greatest teen show of the early aughts, Degrassi: The Next Generation, which you can read here.
Last week, paid subscribers read You Can Always Find Your Way Back, thoughts on Jack Dorsey’s circuitous journey to founding Twitter and embracing life’s detours. Here’s an excerpt:
It’s rare that we talk in detail about what that perseverance actually looks like, how uncomfortable it may feel, and how utterly deranged it might make you look. Perseverance requires doing whatever it takes to cultivate the persistence that makes you keep going — and that might include taking a long detour that serves to remind you of the joy of your original path, of what you love so much about your original goal. It might look like you almost quitting a lifelong journey as a programmer to give massages; it might look like you applying to a youth exchange in New Zealand and considering farming sheep for a year (that last was me, not Dorsey, if it wasn’t clear.) My point is this: periods of confusion and the resultant little side quests are part of the process of figuring out this life thing, and if you’re confused and don’t know what the fuck you’re doing, you’re not alone. But beyond that, no matter where the journey takes you, no matter how far off course you think you might be, you can always find your way back.
On the pod, I talked about building your confidence muscle: listen here.
It’s gorgeous out so I’m getting my first summer pedicure and rolling down a big grassy hill today! Wishing you the same energy,
Lola xx
Oh this was such a gift to read. To bet with the perception of how those teenage girls saw you and to allow that to be the catalyst for your own knowing that you are indeed the living, breathing, present-minded human that you always aspired to both be and have guide you is just beautiful. Thank you for writing this!
Such a great read 💓