The Reluctantly Anti-Brat Summer

Chronic pain kept me from having a brat summer. To cope, I looked for songs that reminded me of the strange duality of feeling physically burnt-out but emotionally energized.

Listen, I was looking forward to turning 40. I really was. But I’ve been at this for half a year now, and it’s complete nonsense. None of you warned me that the warranty on my body was going to run out the second I hit middle age¹.

Setting aside the unending existential dread that’s always faintly buzzing behind my eyes just a little bit, 40 isn’t a number that scared me. Something about watching a new generation of college students lose their minds over anti-aging creams and injectables completely disabused me of the notion that this milestone carried with it some magic expiration date.

My mistake was focusing on the self portrait stashed in my attic growing more haggard by the day, and not this actual sack of meat I’ve been neglecting for decades.

The collapse started right on cue. A few leg pains the week before my birthday sent me straight to an overly-eager, shiny new GP who suggested physical therapy, and why not a mammogram as a special treat? Armed with referrals and wondering when they started letting seventeen-year-olds practice medicine unsupervised, I spent the next few months in PT making my pain significantly worse.

My physical therapist said “you should really be better by now,” and sent me to a specialist. The specialist wouldn’t see me without another referral from the GP. The GP gave me an x-ray. I got another mammogram (the first one came back abnormal, but don’t worry; I’m okay). When I finally saw the specialist, they told me I had a herniated disc, though I’d have to get an MRI before they could help. The MRI confirmed the herniated disc. This bought me an appointment for a steroid injection, but not until two months later. In the midst of this, just for fun, my vision started to go blurry (“bad quality tears,” my eye doctor declared). The injection is scheduled for later this week. All of this took six months in toto.

What happened in the last six months, my friends?

Certainly not the dramatic reinvention of an already-iconic hyperpop diva, one who managed to make both a word and a color reach virality beyond even millennial pink, who catapulted an awkward indie kid to stardom, or who gave Gen Z a complete identity crisis.

@headonfirepodWatching Gen Z discover that Charli XCX is a millennial is amazing. Like I saw a whole thread where a young gaylet was convinced that we had never heard her music before but all he knew was Brat.

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Certainly not. Because how was I supposed to have a brat summer with a herniated disc?

To be fair, this is a pretty comfortable position for me to lie around in now. I just haven’t attempted it in knee-high stilettos.

What’s worse, I had my chance just before it started. Charli xcx played at Primavera Sound in Barcelona at the end of May, just before Brat dropped, and I was right there. Thunderstorms, my goddamned leg pain after twelve hours on my feet, and a 4am time slot the night before hotel checkout all conspired against me. Bed seemed like the sensible, mature, comfortable decision.

Regrets? I have a few.