Dear Mack, I Just Realized I’m Going to Be an Adult for the Rest of My Life

I just realized I’m going to be an adult for the rest of my life. The last two weeks specifically have proved that to me. The past year itself has been such a period of growth for me, personally—you know this better than anyone, because you’re the first person I tell pretty much everything to. But the events of this past summer, all leading up to the last couple weeks, have made it clear to me now more than ever that this whole adult thing is kind of a forever endeavor. (I swear I didn’t mean for that to rhyme. I just got lucky.) And that freaks me out. I mean, there are a lot of exciting things that have happened, but the stressful and anxiety-inducing things definitely have not slipped under the radar. I’m going to focus on the good parts, though. Very on theme with our first issue of the magazine, I think.

(Which you, dear readers, still have the rest of the month to submit to, by the way. If you haven’t submitted anything…what are you even doing…stop reading this letter and go submit! I’m serious!!!)

My friends Ginny, Wesley, and I released a song called Kill You The Same a little over two weeks ago! It’s our first song under our official band name, moviestar, so that was super exciting for all of us. It’s about being people pleasers and wishing we could be as mean to the people who hurt us as they were to us. Really cute, adorable topic to write a song about! No, but seriously, it was really cathartic to write this song with them knowing they’d gone through similar experiences. Whenever we write songs together, it’s usually because we’d all gone through something scarily similar, and it always forges a bonding moment between the three of us. It’s a breath of fresh air, even outside of writing the song. Just knowing your friends are right there with you, and understand what you’ve gone through, on a deeper level than simply sympathizing, is extremely healing. I love those guys so much and can’t wait to make more music with them.

While we’re on the topic of songwriting, I finally wrote a song I’m genuinely proud of, after a few weeks of writing songs that I lowkey hated. It’s the song I posted on TikTok and Instagram last week—it currently has no name, but I call it “The Table Song” right now because of the chorus lyrics. I know for a fact I will not be keeping that title, because the last time I kept a working title as the official song’s name I actually released it onto platforms like that. I already have a “Wallet Picture Song” and I don’t want my entire discography to be Object Name Songs!!

(Notes app screenshot of aforementioned lyrics)

What other news do I have…Oh, I’m in my last semester for my master’s right now as you know, and the guidelines and instructions for the comprehensive exam got released this past week. I have quite literally never been as stressed about anything else as I am now about this. I just get really tense about these things and I just want to get it over with. The little orange freak in my head will. Not. Stop. Screaming. She’s doing Olympian-level gymnastics up in there. This exam determines whether or not I get my degree, and one of my worst fears is letting myself and the people who believe in me down. I haven’t had a full on mental breakdown yet but I’m definitely anticipating one. Stay tuned, I guess… I’m sure it’s all going to end up fine, though. Right? Right???

I’ve been really enjoying ROLE MODEL’s album Kansas Anymore lately—I listened to it a week or so after it came out, but for some reason only started intently listening over the past couple weeks. I couldn’t tell you why, but it’s one of the only things I can listen to in the background of doing work without feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated. Besides the Lady Bird film score and Miracle Tones frequencies (real ones know). I also had a weird epiphany the other day that he kinda sounds like Louis Tomlinson a little bit. Like their voices would go in the same category box or something. I think my favorite song on the record is Slipfast.

I haven’t really been watching a lot of movies or TV lately. You know this, but I’m a sitcom girl. I only ever really rewatch the same sitcoms over and over (New Girl, Modern Family, Friends, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Parks & Rec, etc.) until I randomly decide to start a new one, get hooked on it, and binge the entire thing, adding it to the list of shows I rotate between. Last month, I finally started How I Met Your Mother—a show that several friends have been trying to get me to watch, and me going, “Oh, yeah, I’ll check that out,” and never actually doing it. One fateful day in September, I randomly decided to start watching it, and—you guessed it—I’m hooked. I’m only on season seven though, and I didn’t actually know anything at all about the show prior to starting, so I don’t know who the mother is yet, and if anyone tells me prematurely…you don’t even wanna know what I’d do. Please for the love of God, no one spoil this show for me…it’s the only thing keeping me going throughout this stressful time in my life…don’t strip that from me…

I was thinking about this the other day while bored waiting in line for something, but: imagine an Avengers-type squad of heroes, but with completely useless superpowers. If you could have a useless superpower, what would it be? At the time, there were an ungodly amount of flies just buzzing around and being the most annoying creatures on the face of the earth, so I decided that my weird superpower would be the ability to zap flies to death with the point of a finger. Because I really wished I could do it right in that moment. I think it would be pretty helpful actually and not all that useless, but I guess maybe not so much during combat with a supervillain. Unless the supervillain is a giant fly.

Anyway. I love you! I miss you! Write back soon! (Or else)