Dear Erica,

I'm 37 and one year into a relationship with a dude who I hope will be my forever boyfriend. We met at a concert we both had VIP tickets to. It was the most magical and romantic meet-cute. At the time, we lived about four hours apart, but we decided to keep in touch, since we both had friends and family and reasons to visit our respective cities. For about six months, we regularly spent weekends and vacations together and overall, it was wonderful. Though he often seemed busy with work, he would make time for some of the most incredible sex of my life.

At around the sixth month stage, I had to make a decision about where I wanted to do my Masters. There were great options in both my city, and his, but given the budding relationship, I decided to take the leap and leave town so I could study and live closer to my bf. I didn't see this as "moving for love." We haven't moved in together (yet), and I sublet my old apartment so that I can always go back. But we were both really excited about the idea of living in the same city.

Flash forward, and I'm a semester into my program, and worried that the magic is starting to fade.  I’m blaming this on my boyfriend’s job. (…)

This week on This Is Your Strange and Beautiful Life, Vad and I took a stab at this tome of a listener question: My Vision Board Jumped Off a Bridge in 2011. But as fate would have it, I had many more thoughts. So, I decided to bring the blog out of hiatus and give MVBJOABI-2011 the longform treatment she deserves. The word count is generous, so bring a snack, put your legs up the wall, or read it in the bathroom at work. The photos of my various vision boards are also rather generous. Enjoy!

Love, Erica

I’m from the cohort of Millennials who didn’t get to buy houses unless we pulled off a significant hustle and/or asked our parents for help. Me and most my pals did neither, so we got to our mid-thirties and found that after we paid for our cheap rent and aspirational vegetable baskets, we had a few extra $5 bills. What would we spend them on?

Every Friday night, over slices of pizza the size of our heads, me and my two bombshell besties shoot the shit, swapping the past week’s drama and expenditures. From library books on the mother wound to fast fashion sweatpants.

The drama: A Gay Husband is gaslighting. A parent has triggered adverse childhood experiences. A suitor has proposed clubbing.

The expenditures: A standing desk ($499). Perfume that smells like a man with means ($230) A five-minute bikini wax ($55 for pandemic accumulation). And then suddenly we’re talking about ageing.

For my liposuction speech, I don’t remember doing much research beyond watching a few illicit episodes of Entertainment Tonight. Here’s the whole thing:

Liposuction and Beautifying Methods

By Erica J. Schmidt, February 1998 (age 12) (…)

I was three years old when I first got the clear sense that I was too large. Too large to feel weak. Too large to be protected. Mainly, too large for my mother.

In my life’s great mythology, it all starts with a trip to the Toronto zoo. My sister and I skip along in our sundresses, pausing at the elephants and the giraffes, who we learned on Sesame Street grew their long necks so they could reach the leaves at the top of the trees. The sun feels warm as we make the boardwalk rumble with our feet, our parents close behind. “Let’s go this way,” I announce to my family, and I go that way. But no one follows.