I used to actively wide-awake dream about having full days in front of me to just write: I’d have nowhere to be, nothing planned, no one I had to talk to, just me and time hanging out together filling the space with all the things rattling around in my head that wanted to be spilled onto a page. Sometimes I’d blame my job for not allowing me that freedom. Of course I did. But honestly, I also made plans like crazy: dinners with friends, party invitations accepted, shindigs planned. But often on the designated days I’d secretly hope the date would get cancelled. It wasn’t a reflection on my friends, it was more a realization once again that I’m not the social creature I think I am. A high percentage of the time once I was in the moment, I’d be happy. (Although that was rarely true for parties. I’ve completely fallen out of love with any situation that holds more than 6 people and requires mingling. I’m crap at mingling.)

So when one of my top favorite writers, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, wrote this piece on the joy of having plans cancel themselves due to our current awfulness, I nodded my head hard enough so that the paper in my hand rattled. One thing I love about Taffy is her honesty to just write things that other people might read and think is she writing about me?—which I generally think is a reaction everyone who knows a writer thinks at one point or another. (I refer you to the brilliant Alan Cummings & Jennifer Jason Leigh movie, The Anniversary Party, for some funny scenes around that type of misunderstanding.) As I get older, I keep reading about how you come to a point where you move on from caring about how you land with people. You get salty. You speak your mind and even if something strange comes out, you don’t even cringe because who cares? You’ve been on the planet long enough to say what you want. You’re not bothered.

I’m not certain when that magic age is numerically. I know people in their twenties who are able to discern what they do and don’t want to do socially. For me, I still hear should whispered inside my cranium. When I was young that word was wrapped around career moves. I should go to that club/party/lunch/dinner/clown show because I might see someone there who will further my job prospects. Or, I should be seen there because it will look good. A bit later on the word was a cling-on around romance. Maybe I’ll meet the person of my dreams. 9.5 out of 9.8 times I’d end up in the corner talking to someone I had stopped wanting to talk to five minutes in and now an hour had gone by and I didn’t even use the “I’m going to get another drink” or “to the bathroom” excuse to extricate myself because I thought it would be rude. My. Lord. what a lot of wasted time because I was actually worried about hurting someone’s feelings. GAAAAH. I hung around inappropriately rude people just because I wanted to see how they managed to avoid situations they didn’t want to be in. I wanted to notate how they walked away and didn’t care. But after a bit I realized many of these people were bananas so I really didn’t spend enough time around them to gain any knowledge.

I in no way see our current pandemic time in the light of “Oh, I’m so glad this happened.” But I do feel that now is a really good time to look at all sides of where I am in my life. Bravery in expressing myself is a thing. Being able to do that kindly, to both myself and those around me, is a goal. Not an impossible one either. I realize in my writing (novelistically and otherwise), I can stretch beyond and take a chance to not care what someone might think.

So that’s all I got here today. But I do highly recommend the Taffy canon of writing for not only great essays and profiles but also for her honest renditions of self (like this one that I had the opportunity to disagree with her on, but still love). Have you discovered your magic age to get salty and do what you want?