I Almost Forgot: Lesley Arfin is Awesome

Man, I forgot how much I love Lesley Arfin. I used to read her now-defunct blog Cafe Con Lesley religiously and it took me watching this new Style Like U video to be reminded of her wit and brilliance. I love the honesty of this video. How many times have you read an interview about people who 'struggled and struggled until they found their late-blooming success'? These interviews always skip out the parts about the reality of self-doubt and the complete disorientation of that 'oh god, what am I doing?' feeling, so what I really love about this video is that Lesley doesn't. She is completely honest about how things went tits-up every now and then but without resolving to a 'but now, I've made it'-style happy ending. Things are good for her now, she is a main writer on HBO's Girls (which if I'm honest I wasn't massively won over by, but maybe I'll give it another go) but life continues to be great in parts, and when it's not great, that's okay too. There is so much emphasis today on things going right all the time, and on individuals always being happy, so I like Lesley's approach which feels more realistic and trial and error based. It says 'don't sweat the small stuff.'

One thing that often stands out to me in interviews with women in their 30s is that they often seem pretty sorted when it comes to their own self-confidence and competence when it comes to knowing 'how to get stuff done', in a way that starkly contrasts myself, my friends, and women in general of my own age. Lesley reflects this when she talks about how much more hung-up she was about her body in her 20s. This interview reminds me to be less hung-up, in all aspects of my life because it's so easy to get into a funk when you forget that shrugging your shoulders and pulling a 'whatever' sign with your fingers is a pretty okay way of powering on sometimes.