about the death of eras

and why they make me cry every time

I used to cry at every season ender of The Real World. Each time I’d tell myself, as I pressed play on my TiVo (I’m aging myself so fast here, OH WELL), I’d say “I’m not going to cry this time.”

Obviously that promise didn’t hold. By the end of the episode, when there was only one housemate left and they were walking through the mansion that just hours ago had been filled with six other people, I’d have tears streaming down my face. And I didn’t just cry during the episode. There was a period of mourning for hours after that last housemate had locked the door for the last time and climbed into a cab. Fetal positions were involved. Staring out rainy windows. My chest was pitted like an avocado because of seven people I didn’t know and, in some cases, actively kind of loathed. But something about that last shot—them staring up at the house, already standing in the middle of a memory, knowing it was never going to be just like that ever again—karate chopped me right in the throat.

It’s just that I’m very bad at handling the death of an era. It doesn’t have to be my own, as evidenced by my The Real World anecdote above—I mourn my own and others’ in pretty equal measure. Graduations, leaving jobs, moving cities, moving homes, that last day of an incredible trip with your best friends—it’s the realization that you had it so good right where you were, and maybe you appreciated it, but did you appreciate it enough? Did you stop every once in a while and let those eras move around you while you breathed out and took it all in?

I always think about to this one Humans of New York post that knocked me over when I read it years ago:

“Oh, my god. I was happy. And I didn’t even know it.” I mean 😭😭😭

And that’s not to say I’ve always been happy all the time in my eras, or that anyone else is. It’s just that there’s some center of joy or contentment or inherent life-related value that all the other stuff orbits around. And when it’s over, you’re just…kind of sitting there in space, wondering where you go from here.

That’s how I felt yesterday when I saw people saying their potential goodbyes on Twitter—like, wait. It’s done? That’s it? I’ve been part of the platform since 2010, when the Twilight fanfic community was at its peak (another era I mourn regularly), forgot about it for a number of years when Twi fandom fell away, and then came back in 2021 when I decided that I was going to try my hand at getting published. It’s been in my life for over a decade.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that so many of my eras began with Twitter: the origin story of my very best friendships began with a tweet about Outlander. More recently, some of my closest friends in the writing community were acquired via DM slide. I got to celebrate signing with my agent (begin era) with the community on Twitter, got to scream about my book deal (begin era) with the community on Twitter. So the idea that Twitter itself might be headed toward its end has me deeply in my feelings. Maybe I had an emotional breakdown about it last night while I listened to Taylor Swift’s ‘You’re on Your Own, Kid’ on repeat, who can say.

And listen, I have significantly reduced my time on Twitter because, as we all know, social media giveth serotonin and social media very much taketh serotonin away. But it was always there, you know? And I don’t know if I ever took the time to kind of stand there and take it all in. How ridiculous and amazing and infuriating and questionable and hilarious and touching and connective it’s been. I was taking screenshots of tweets I’d bookmarked last night, thinking, don’t shut the doors yet!! I’m not ready!!

But eras don’t always wait for your readiness before they die. And if this is it for this era, then I hope that I can take a little screenshot of it before wandering into the next. And I hope that you’ll wander with me, too, whether it’s here in this newsletter or on Instagram or Goodreads or even on Twitter until it rides off into the sunset.

Okay, onto some RANDOM SCREAMING:

-       My debut, You, with a View, is part of Target’s Buy 2, Get 1 Free sale, happening until 11/12 (that’s tomorrow)! FEELS VERY SURREAL to be part of Target’s anything.

-       If you miss the sale, you can always preorder at all major retailers, captured through the handy Penguin Random House site! But it’s not going to be out for another 8 months (8 months TODAY), so you have plenty of time to make that happen.

-       Last week I finished J. Broson’s novella, The Night at the Wedding and absolutely adored it. It’s categorized as cozy erotica and OH MY GODDDD did it deliver. It was steamy and tender and so, so comforting. I love romance that shows small intimacies, not just the big, sexy stuff (although don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the big, sexy stuff and this novella delivers on that, too) and The Night at the Wedding absolutely did that. Relatedly, if anyone has any novella recommendations, I’m absolutely in my novella era and want them all.

-       Taylor Swift is throwing Anti-Hero remixes at our faces and I happened to snag the acoustic one because I’m nothing if not a sad b*tch. Apparently it’s no longer for sale but you can listen to it here, HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

That’s all for now!

xoxo

Jess