This is a four minute read ☎️
hi there! It’s Tass.
This is our private corner for the conversations that begin over brunch, stretch across long voice notes, and somehow turn into a recommendation, an invitation, or a fit of laughter.
I write weekly, and there’s always something waiting at the bottom.
When I was 13, we took the candles from the school’s chapel for our Halloween party. We grabbed the matches, too, and that’s how the Catholic Church sponsored our gathering.
Life is still a bit chaotic (or maybe I am); still, nothing compares to the adrenaline of smoking in my bedroom and hearing my dad’s car. I smoked mostly normal cigarettes and always had a pack of Negresco (Brazilian Oreo).
To this day, my mom still has no idea how many times I went to a skate park in another city with my skater friends. A five-star night out always had someone puking, and it was considered fun. I remember when a friend puked neon yellow, and we were so impressed! She was really an alien! Now I think it was not okay, but never mind, because on that same day, we lost her at the club and found her sleeping by a tree! We thought it was a backpack!
I don’t miss getting drunk and especially don’t miss getting sick. I miss being so easily excited about small things, having secrets or something to enthusiastically rage against. I miss being a riot grrrl, and I sadly and finally understand adults with adrenaline hobbies, or the ones going to every protest. Maybe I should find a team to root for or join a fan club.
Life can be very boring as a put-together-adult: Gym from Monday to Friday, skincare, eat our veggies, have a good day job, and behave well so we don’t lose it. We smile at people we don’t like; we mute group chats we don’t want to read instead of simply leaving; we don’t have any fights and make up with our friends. We don’t borrow each other's clothes—at least within the Secret Club, we have our annual Clothing Swap.
It’s weird and sad that our adrenaline has to be calculated. Did we build a Truman’s Show kind of existence? I refuse to get nihilistic, though. I know I’m alive to enjoy this lifetime. Sometimes I fail that, but I keep reminding myself that the purpose of it all is to have fun. The purpose isn’t to pay the bills. I know it’s confusing because every bill has a clear due date, and our expiring time is unknown.
However, the gap between a boring adult and a fun teenager isn’t just social expectations, age, and hormones. I think it’s also what happens when life teaches us to calculate consequences.
We lose something when we become experts at anticipating damage. Our joints stiffen, our jaws clench, and our minds grow less willing to leap. We start mistaking playfulness for irresponsibility, as though the two were in the same box.
I’ve been trying to call my younger self to ask for advice, but she’s too busy living to pick up. When I finally reach her, I’ll ask what I would do today—and follow her lead without blinking.
❋ Clothing Swap Picnic — Sunday, June 7, we’ll gather at Töölö Bay once again for something that already feels like a tradition. Our fourth edition already — I can’t wait. You’ll find the event details in our WhatsApp group.