well hello there hi, and for all those who haven’t met me, i’m linsey and you might know me from the OG Work Like a Girl newsletter. i’m a chronically in my own head eldest daughter millennial. my notes app is a reflection of my brain; it’s chaotic. grocery lists half done, to-do lists for work sort of checked off. the drafts of texts i wanted to send and happily didn’t. the things i wish i was brave enough to say outloud.
i also love music. the idea that a song can instantly transport me in time, or that the right lyrics can sum up the complexity of the human experience in a way that feels both universal but also deeply personal.
those deeply personal thoughts, the ones that a particular song can bring me back to? the ones i’m too scared to share? this is where they come to life.
this is note to self.
butterflies.
- i sit in parks. culver blvd. april 2nd.
i’ve been thinking a lot lately about the butterfly effect. the choices i made along the way. the ones life forced upon me. and what could have happened “if”.
if i hadn’t gotten married. if i hadn’t gotten divorced. if i had gone to princeton instead. or boston u. or vanderbilt. or if i had gone to cambridge instead of notts. if i had skipped grad school entirely.
if. if. if. if.
honestly? fuck the “what ifs”.
sure, when things get particularly overwhelming, i dream about those paths not taken. romanticize what could have been. to think that on the other side of that choice is the greener pasture, the happy ending.
and when you’re stressed and anxious and looking for an escape? there’s no better escape than the reality that could have been.
lately i’ve been deep in a hyperfixation on Kelsea Ballerini’s new album. something about her lyrics just hit me. rolling up the welcome mat could have been easily about my divorce, minus the penthouse in nashville. i love her full albums. i LOVE her EPs.
one day, while i was driving to work, i sit in parks came on. again. and then i hit repeat.
see, a few weeks prior, i launched notes to self over on substack and i’d been waiting for inspiration. for that song that would really hit and connect and make me think, and while i was sat trying to get to the 90 to get to the 405 where i would sit again before i could get to the 10 where i could, you guessed it, sit in traffic, again. it hit.
i’ve been saying lately that i ended up right where i feel like i’m meant to be. that life may not be perfect, i may not always feel the happiest or most secure and i might be unraveling my life and my wounds in real time, but it’s mine. it’s the life i fought for and earned.
but that doesn’t change the fact that through that process i’m constantly wondering about what if.
what if i had chosen a different college. what if i hadn’t said yes and then i do. what if i hadn’t walked away. what if i had chosen to freeze eggs or have kids. what if i prioritized my career too much.
what if i had chosen differently.
and in that moment, when i was honestly motherfucking myself for not taking the side streets because i knew there was construction on culver blvd., Kelsea hit me.
see, for the first time in a long time, i’ve been slowing down. i know to those who know me it doesn’t seem like it. i’m definitely stressed, work is chaotic, and it may seem like i’m constantly on a 12. but truly, i am. i’m learning these things called “boundaries” and “saying no” and “delegating”.
i’m stable. i’ve lived at the same address for two years. i haven’t packed a suitcase or been on a plane in several months. i’ve lost all my status on airlines, and that in and of itself is a fucking travesty because i don’t know how to go back.
but i stopped. i stopped running and started wondering.
what if.
what if i had gone to a different college? maybe i would have won more lacrosse games. but my life — my career — would look so different. penn state is where i met my ex-husband. where i started my career in sports…and i can literally trace a throughline in my career from that job to the dream job i have now.
what if i hadn’t said yes, when my ex asked me to marry him? what if i had called off the engagement when i knew we had major issues? see, i used to think love could fix it all. now i know love is only part of the equation. as adults, sometimes there are decisions where there is no compromise where both parties are happy.
having kids is one of them.
what if i had wanted kids? would i still be married? what would my life look like? would i really have been satisfied with soccer on saturdays, and making lunches, and parent-teacher conferences?
would i have a mini-me?
sometimes it feels like the what ifs are a distinctly female experience because so many of our choices are tied to biology. logically, i know wondering and questioning our choices isn’t that unique.
but the concept of choice for women? it’s not something that’s been freely given. as i ruminate on life i know that my ability to question my choices is a luxury that many women didn’t - and still don’t - have. that there are women who wonder what if they could choose.
see the ability to choose how we live our lives is something women have fought for. and it’s something that some will claim we shouldn’t have.
i hate the fact that we’re still fighting for that right, but worse still is the way we judge each other for our choices - this idea that there is a right way to be a woman? to be a mother? to show up and exist in this world?
it feels like women are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.
and i think that’s played a part in my rumination. this idea that no matter what i chose, or what i choose? it will always be wrong to someone.
that’s the thing about what ifs. the comparison of our life, our paths, to the “checklist”. to the should haves. to the people walking down the street, the experts on linkedin, to our friends on social media.
you never know who is looking at your life, wishing they had exactly what you had.
sleeping in on saturdays. the tour. being able to focus on your career — fully — without feeling the guilt of missing a moment, or being late. the fresh start.
comparison is a thief of joy. i’ve found myself in the spiral, looking at the photos and the moments and wondering if i’ll regret the paths not taken, because regret is real in my life.
i have a lot of regrets. things i’d change. choices i’d make differently, if i could. mostly words that were said that i wish i could take back. i regret the moments i gave up with my sisters, because i thought i needed to be present in my marriage more.
but that’s the thing about the butterfly effect. even in those regrets, those little moments where i wish i had just done better — been kinder, softer, more present, where i wish i had chosen myself — i don’t know how those moments would have changed my trajectory. if they would have changed my trajectory.
and honestly? yes, i regret those moments but they’ve also built me and shaped me and if changing just one of those moments means i wouldn’t have ended up here? then i wouldn’t change a thing. i wouldn’t change the hurt i’ve caused, or the moments i’ve missed or the things i passed up that will never come back around.
see, if i had chosen differently, i wouldn’t be here. here, in this apartment next to the beach, where i can see the sunset every day over the water if i want. i wouldn’t be in a job that stretches me, challenges me, fulfills me. a job that has brought so many amazing people into my life. maybe i wouldn’t have found Work Like A Girl. maybe i wouldn’t have met my ex-husband and been through the ups and downs of marriage and divorce, but i also wouldn’t have met one of my soul mates — one of the women that carried me (sometimes literally) through some of the darkest and most challenging moments in life. i might have gotten the fancy MBA from the fancy university, but i wouldn’t have spent a year with my sister and her family, getting to see my niece and nephews grow up.
so changing any of those choices?
i wouldn’t have learned about who i am, so that i can become who i want to be.
