In an interview I saw somewhere, Nora Ephron said that she and her friends would play a game while waiting for a table at a restaurant. You write down five things that are currently the most important things about you. She gave examples. She also said that ten years later, none of the original words she used showed up on her new list, nor did those five on the list she made ten years after that.
I played the game myself last week. My five things are Ambitious. College graduate. Feminist. Democrat. Single. A year ago, the title “Marketing Assistant” would be included and, five years ago, the affiliation Republican would have taken the place of Democrat. The striking result of this game is realizing how much one can change.
Last year, I had a job before I graduated. I started working in April, a day before my twenty-third birthday. I had a salary, benefits, a dog, and my own apartment. The checklist was complete. I wouldn’t need to move home. “Independent Woman Part 1” by Destiny’s Child was my theme song.
Now, a year later, my five things don’t include the title “Marketing Assistant” because I took another cue from Nora. Nora Ephron had the enviable ability to reinvent herself multiple times over her life and career. She worked as a journalist, screenwriter, novelist, essayist, playwright, and director. She wasn’t just one thing, and it seems as though she disregarded age and change as possible limitations to her pursuits.
Although I had all the things I thought I should upon graduating college, I realized those choices had nothing to do with who I ultimately want to become. Consequently, I made a decision to reinvent my situation and, significantly, my decision was based on a personal, higher vision of myself rather than some millennial rat race that doesn’t actually matter.
A month ago, I moved back into Salem Academy, a college preparatory boarding school for girls. Nine years ago, I moved in for the first time as a high school freshman. The difference now is my ID card reads “Staff,” I hold the unsettling authority to give demerits, I run hall meetings rather than begrudgingly attend them, and I drive the activity buses I rode on when I was a Salem student. I am also almost ten years older.
I played my own version of The Nora Game.
