Dear Auntie Mac,

I just finished watching the last episode of “Tiny Beautiful Things”, which I absolutely loved — so well written, I highly recommend it. The main character (who I adore) writes an advice column under the pseudonym, Sugar, so I wanted to pose her first question to you (who I also adore): What would you tell your 22-year-old self?

A Fan

My Dear Neighbor:

Auntie Mac is certainly touched by your flattering words. One’s heart always gladdens when hearing that one is adored. As Tallulah Bankhead remarked, “To hell with criticism; praise is good enough for me.” But before Auntie Mac’s head swells rather too large for her own fascinator, she must address your question, and with no small amount of attention, for as some may have guessed, she has not been her 22-year-old self for what could possibly be millennia. She is aware that the protagonist of the series you mention became an advice columnist after a rather lengthy trek across certain western trails, journeys of which apparently do wonders for the soul. Auntie Mac is a great admirer of such feats of determination and fashion-free footwear; she will admit, however, that her soul’s excursions, in her youth, followed a different route, though I daresay one no less treacherous at times.

Auntie Mac is reminded of one of her favorite quotes, by the novelist Colette: “In those days I was a fabulous creature, wiry and rapacious, wracked by appetites as foreign to me now as the motivations of a remote ancestor.” If she were to give advice to the young woman who at times squandered her good fortune and bypassed what seem now to have been wonderful opportunities, the first word that comes to mind is discernment. One thinks at twenty-two that the world will end in moments, and so one acts rashly and impetuously. At times this takes the form of bellying up to the salad bar of life, pushing aside the sneeze guard and eating everything in sight; at other times it manifests itself as simply doing nothing at all. When given choices for travel, for education, for introductions to (if she may indeed say so) quite influential people, she so often let ennui rule the day. Whether from fear of change, reluctance to take any type of familial advice, or an inflated ego that conversely morphed into small-mindedness, she was not discerning in her choices. She was not brave. She was not adventurous. She did not stop to weigh the enormity of decisions that would torment her well into her later years.

Lest you think, dear, that Auntie Mac followed along this well-worn path into her thirties and forties, rest assured, she did not. Somehow she snapped out of it, and a world of wonders opened up to her, one assumes much like what the advice columnist discovered in the rocky lands through which she traversed. And as you know, when one takes that first risk, the rest become easier, until one day you find yourself in a Norwegian fire festival with a thousand Vikings and a sharp communal plunge into an icy bay.
We could all use a bit more discernment in our daily lives, I suspect. The careful weighing of options, the dipping of one’s emotional stick, are really what places us in touch with our truest selves. And from time to time it’s good to get re-acquainted with that fabulous creature.

Your Auntie Mac