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Lastly, I don’t know how to say this other than to be direct and insufferably corny: You can survive the unimaginable. I think “coping with modern trauma” will be the “mindfulness” of the next 25 years.Ģ5. Post-traumatic stress-a relatively new diagnosis in the 1990s-now affects about 6% of the US adult population at some point in life, or roughly 12 million people per year-not counting the legions of minors who suffer from the disorder. Ipso facto, in 2014, the night before my first-person essay was published in Vanity Fair, one of my best friends introduced me to this Anaïs Nin quote: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Take the risk to blossom. These are the investments most worth nurturing.Ģ3. My most emotionally intimate relationships are with my incredible friends. While I have since let go of the resentment and bitterness that surrounded her and her betrayal, it’s not lost on me how very fortunate I am to have been able to trust new people. Twenty-five years ago I had one of the world’s worst friends: Linda “Judas, hold my beer” Tripp. I often imagine how such body-positive messaging would have impacted my own self-esteem growing up-and wonder if it might have ameliorated the fat-shaming that other young women of the time experienced.Ģ1.

So much so that we now have store mannequins of myriad body shapes and sizes. The “heroin-chic” emaciation of the late ’90s and early aughts finally went out of fashion. In the deepest, darkest moments of the soul, a simple act of human kindness is a powerful thing.Ģ0. The power of one kind word is extraordinary. You can only try to integrate your previous selves with as much compassion as you can muster.ġ9. Perhaps the most challenging idea I had to come to accept was that there is no shedding or unshackling of the self that sprang from 1998 (and that made the behavioral decisions that landed me there). Get comfortable with the Art of the Mistake.ġ8. One thing everyone has in common is that we have all made mistakes. Due, in large part, to the menacing aspects of social media, the 24/7 scandal cycle has turned out to be even more devastating over time-to lives, careers, reputations, public discourse, and the American psyche.ġ7. Simpson (1995), the paparazzi mob that pursued Princess Diana to her death (1997), or the press scrum surrounding the whole Clinton saga (1998 to 2000), which happened to supercharge a new television network, Fox News.

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We thought that the tabloidization of our news coverage could not get more tawdry or destructive after the trial of O.J. You know, the perfect amount that you can handle in a moment to move yourself along, but not so much that you’ll be caught in an undertow.ġ6. One day (not today) I’m going to write a short story about a vending machine that serves up Just the Right Amount of Grief. It seems we don’t finish grieving, but merely finish for now we process it in layers. I refer to not only the loss of a loved one but also the loss of a hope, a dream, or love itself. #MeToo is now a baseline, not an aberration.ġ3. Two benchmarks of social triumph, 1998–2023? The freedom to marry whomever one wants was made possible (2015) and protected (2022). As the years pass, one’s taste in partners gets better.

(And thankfully, no one wore a beret.)ġ1. It took me 22 years to be able to watch The West Wing-which, yes, I agree, was brilliant. (Corollary: Disneyland is still the happiest place on earth.)ĩ. Finding joy-hunting for it, even-is an essential part of life.

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