Zoe Kurland

Lately, I feel like I'm going through a new kind of puberty.

After feeling for a decade like I'd largely escaped the fray of adolescence, I'm suddenly, once again, stepping from what feels like one life phase to another.

No longer young, but not yet old.

There's something mushy and liminal about this age.

The vague feeling of being at a turning point.

Like I'm supposed to be solid, crystallized, in some new identity that I don't quite understand yet.

In this liminal moment, suggestion is powerful.

I'm not immune to the rhythmic push and pull of society slash culture slash the algorithm, which is telling me I should be ageless, have a baby tomorrow, and adopt a meat-only diet for some reason.

I see pictures of my friends getting married or somehow working from Tahiti or, like, looking really amazing in a hat.

And not since I was 15 have I thought this much about how other people might see me.

Should I become a hat person?

When I was a teenager, Erin was a vision of a shining adult future I could look forward to when I reached that point.

But now I'm there.

Or here, rather.

And I guess I'm still wondering, in some way, how to look like that.

Be like that.

You see Aaron Brockovich, you see Julia Roberts, you have to transform that into that.

That's just the job.

And if you're good at it, you can do it.

And if you're not, you can't.