So much of who I was—my daily habits, my identifying clothing—had to get thrown away in making room to become a mother. What’s left of me now shares space with my son, and as a result my mental capacity has been reduced from a decent three-bed, two-bath apartment to, at best, a tenement studio. The one advantage of this new limited space is that what can and can’t come in is now very clear.

Harry Styles
For the first few years of Styles-mania, I thought, The guy from One Direction? Surely this cannot be right. Then he started dressing like everyone’s mother’s wildest friend from the seventies, and people got even more excited. At the Grammys, he wore a leather blazer with no shirt, which admittedly looked quite nice. However, he also had a green boa around his neck. I can’t help but imagine there was a discussion about the boa beforehand—most likely, a team of stylists sourced multiple boas to present as options. For me, this is a big turnoff. I feel similarly about his rings—I always picture him putting them on one by one in the morning or taking them off one by one at night, and I want to hide under the bed.

The deep down of it, though, is that all I can think about when I look at Harry Styles is how much I would have loved him when I was twenty-one and how certain I am that he would have hurt my feelings. From my middle-aged-mom perch, all I can think is: Sorry, but I am not falling for it, Harry Styles.

Waiting in Line for Brunch
The one meal I actually know how to make is breakfast. Why did I ever need to wait in line for someone to make it for me? Well, O.K., I guess the answer is that I wanted to look at attractive cool people eating brunch while I ate brunch. But now I feel like I’ve seen all the attractive cool people I need to see for the rest of my life. I’m fine with looking at attractive cool people on my phone while I eat my son’s leftover pancakes over the sink. Please, don’t get me wrong—I’m not trying to pretend I don’t still enjoy brunch out with a friend. It’s just that now, on the rare occasion I am able to bail on my child in the middle of the day, my friend and I need to get our butts in seats and drinks in hands immediately, because the clock is ticking on how long someone’s watching the kid, and our lives aren’t going to grouse about themselves.

Wishing I Was the Prettiest Woman in the Room
All through my early twenties, right before I walked into a party or a meeting, there would always be a moment when I secretly wished I would be among the prettier people there. I guess I was hoping I’d be viewed as a nine if enough fives were present, which was very much the hope of someone who viewed herself as a six at best. I’m embarrassed to be admitting this, but it’s true, and, insofar as we live in a society that couldn’t make it clearer that being pretty and thin is the primary expectation of young women, I don’t blame myself.

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I would walk into a room of pretty girls and ache with jealousy, crushed by the pain of never winning the Pretty Contest, even though it is unwinnable by design. There is something comforting about being completely out of that race—which isn’t to say I don’t think I’m still pretty in my own forty-six-year-old, cake-loving way. It’s just that I feel so firmly out of the running now that when I see some kind of weapons-grade Zoë Kravitz beauty my mind actually just lies back and enjoys it, as I would a vacation sunset. Like, how lucky am I that I exist at a time when Zoë Kravitz’s face exists, wowowow.

TikTok
I was already about twenty social-media apps behind when TikTok emerged. Somewhere around Snapchat, I had decided I just couldn’t keep up. None of the new apps sounded interesting to me, or they all seemed similar to the ones I already had. I mean, how many different apps does one need to tell one’s partner, “Don’t forget 2 pick up kid’s rash cream”? (The answer is one.) Then TikTok came along and, as with Styles, people seemed cranked up about it. I’m not so wretchedly old that I’m not curious, so I figured maybe I would take a quick peek. And, lo and behold, people do seem to be having a great time on there. I mean, there’s a lot of booty-short dancing, and that is indeed quite fun. Yet it feels a bit like a party I’m not invited to, even though technically we’re all invited. It’s probably more accurate to say it feels like a party I shouldn’t have been invited to.

I can only look at, like, three TikTok videos before I stagger backward, gobsmacked. How are all these people performing their lives with this level of energy? I think at age forty-six I just feel a bit performed out, maybe because so much of my recent non-TikTok life—specifically, being a mother and having to pretend I know what I’m doing—has felt like one long, unending show. ♦