PicoBlog

Hello everyone! It’s Sunday, my new favorite day because I get to check in with all of you and read a brand new batch of your letters! (And they said it couldn’t be done — that social media is by default a toxic place.) I marvel at how we are all strangers to one another and yet dive right into the big questions of the human experience here, with such tenderness and care.

Last week in the chat, we asked where you’re all from, and the response was incredible. This community of radical self-love is spread across the entire globe! It lifts me up to know that this practice of ours is helping to make connections between so many like-minded and like-hearted ones across continents.

Our special guest this week is none other than Taryn Delanie Smith, who you might know from Instagram (@TarynDelanieSmith) or from TikTok (@Taryntino21). She is a force of nature — former Miss New York, self-described “chaos goblin” on social media (!), queen of dance-offs, hijinks, scapes, and shenanigans, a young woman with a huge heart, an advocate for children and families experiencing homelessness, and the creator of a character I love dearly: Denise, Heaven’s receptionist.

January 27, 2024

Taryn’s letter reflecting on her 20-year-old self had me thinking about my own 20-year-old self. It turns out that we are both working on reuniting with the self-possessed, brave young women we used to be.

Dear Love, what would you have my twenty-year-old self know today?

My little banquet, my Lizzy at age 54 — you think this is going to be a letter to your younger self, but I’m pulling a fast one on you today. I’m mixing it up a bit. I’m going to write you a letter ABOUT your younger self — what you need to hear about her.

You yourself have answered hundreds of times in interviews this question: “What would you tell your younger self, if you had the chance?” and always you have winced, picturing what you were up to in your twenties, especially what you were getting up to around men and sex and romance. You still feel the sting of shame, of regret, of some of your actions. All that wasted time and energy. All that heartbreak. All that less-than-noble behavior. And what is your answer, always, when people ask you what you would tell your younger self? You paraphrase George Washington’s warning about getting involved in foreign wars, which he said in his final address as president. You say, “I would tell my younger self to beware of foreign entanglements. I would tell her not to get involved with any dudes — to go find herself, to learn how to live alone, to focus on her work.”

Well my darling Lizzy at 54 years old, sitting there all alone, focusing on her work, staying away from dudes: EASY FOR YOU TO SAY. Easy for you to say, with your diminishing hormones, your decades of life experience, having drunk yourself to the gills on passion and mistakes, having gotten to have your marriages, your divorces, your experiences, your life. Easy for you to say, post-hysterectomy, having found your place in the world — that that young girl in her twenties should have somehow known better than to stick her hand into the flames of lust.

This is what I want you to know, Lizzy, about Liz in her twenties: She was doing her JOB back then — chasing down every flicker of excitement and passion. And yeah, part of her job was cheating on people and being cheated on. To have her heart broken. To be degraded and humiliated. To experience the pinch of regret. To make what looks to you now like awful choices, and to have those choices cost her dearly. She was merely doing her job. It is the job of the young to taste everything they can here in Earth School — to test boundaries, to experiment, to fuck up, to hurt people and to get hurt.

Why don’t you leave her alone, Lizzy, and stop judging her? Let her do her job. All that so-called nonsense she was up to in the heated years of youth helped forge you into who you are today. Without her, there is no you.

And while you’re at it, maybe throw her a little gratitude. Because remember what else she was doing during those years, with the same passion with which she chased all those unavailable men. She was writing. She was sitting in garbage apartments in the East Village, all alone, writing what would be your first book. You always thank the agents and editors who gave you your first chance at your career, but you never thank your twenty-year-old self. For it is she who made you.

I may be coming down a little strongly on you today, my child, but it is only because I’m tired of watching you bully and judge someone who can’t defend herself — bully and judge this younger version of you, whom I love just as much as I love you. Can you love her as she was, just as I love you as you are? I mean, just look at her in her high-waisted, acid-washed, knee-length denim shorts. Who wouldn’t love her?

Take it easy on all the parts of you, my dear — on all you have ever been, on all the ages of you, on all you shall be. Each one, each precious one of you, is the song of my heart. Show them mercy, and you shall know my name.

As always, you can keep the process very simple this week, and merely ask Love this question: “Dear Love, what would you have me know today?” That is the classic prompt, and it’s a good one! But if you would like to go deeper, perhaps you can ask Unconditional Love what it wants you to know about some younger version of yourself, or you can ask your younger self what they would have you know, especially if your younger self, like mine and Taryn’s, had a natural boldness or fearlessness that you are trying to reclaim.

A few announcements:

On Thursday evening, I will be speaking in Boca Raton, Florida, as part of the Peaceful Mind, Peaceful Life series. Tickets here: Florida

On February 22nd, I’ll be appearing at the Balboa Theatre in San Diego during the Writers’ Symposium by the Sea. Tickets here: San Diego

AND I’ll be on a big (for me!) tour of Europe for all of April — starting in London and ending in Amsterdam, with these points in between: Southampton, Berlin, Stockholm, Cologne, Manchester, and Copenhagen! Tickets here: Europe

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