Burn the candles

For a while, I lived in Australia.

Toward the end of my time there, I started imagining how I would trot out this phrase as a casual aside, perhaps years in the future, perhaps to my children, who would be dazzled by my worldliness. Oh, yes, for a while, I lived in Australia. I knew I should spend that final act in Melbourne soaking in the coffee and the cacophonous birds and the slow drift of eucalyptus leaves in the Yarra, but all I could focus on was the moment it would become retrospective: A while ago, I lived in Australia. 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve perceived my life like this—in the near-future tense. It took me years to see the fault in this because the near-future tense gave me so much of what I had. If I couldn’t stand high school, who cared? I would work as hard as I could to optimize for college: when my real life would begin. I wrote books with no agenda but to practice for professional authordom: when my real life would begin. I dated people and paid less attention to how I felt about them than the temptation of some eventual certainty: when my real life would finally begin.

In that last month in Australia, I started measuring my time by exhaustible products. I didn’t have spare suitcase space, so I wanted to use up the last of my clarifying shampoo and gummy vitamins and Q-tips just in time to leave. I also wanted to use up my candles.

There were four of them. Two were gifts; two I bought myself. They were all melted halfway down because once I got to the halfway point, I started subconsciously conserving them for some imagined future date—a deeply happy or deeply sad moment that required candles. Never mind that I could have walked to any of the seven nearby shops that sold candles; I carefully preserved these for my near-future tense. And then I got there, to that last month, and I had to get through four half candles.

Something else I did during that last month in Australia: I kept a list on my phone called “just something to look forward to.” Each day, I wrote a miniature daydream. They were mostly little vibes: “Sunglasses, evening glow, picnic blanket, burrata and berries, opening a bottle of wine, dog-spotting.” “Cozy winter dinner party, red wine, piles of heavy coats, candlelight, low music, crackling heater.” I see the humor in this—I was planning a near-future occasion to light some candles. New candles, presumably, because my Australian candles were absolutely not going to outrank my Blundstones for suitcase space. And yet! I still could not burn those candles. I flirted with the idea, of course—I burned them all down to a quarter full. Then I stopped again. What if I needed that quarter candle in my last week?

My last week arrived. I finished my first candle. It winked out and left behind a thin pool of wax, and I realized, staring at it, wondering whether I was meant to clean and recycle the glass, that I did not know the answer because I had never in my life finished a candle. Since childhood, I’ve been leaving a trail of half-burned candles in my wake.

I’ve been doing a lot of setup here because I need you to understand the irony when I explain that I have another list on my phone called “silly little life guidelines.” The first guideline on this list has for some years been: “Burn the candles.” This advice arrived in my custody via my best friend (very wise). When I first heard the phrase, I thought, Yes, exactly, that’s exactly right. I wrote it down. I told other people about it. I went home and did not burn my candles.

By “Burn the candles,” I mean don’t spend your life in the near-future tense. I mean don’t save small and simple joys for an imagined future. I mean don’t worry so much—it’s just a candle.

The thing about the advice to live in the present is that it’s incomplete. Yes, live in the present, but also live in the past enough that you reflect on your mistakes and successes. Yes, live in the present, but live in the future enough that you can set goals and feel hopeful about your future. Use the past and the future to live in the present.

Changing your life is full of chaos and unexpected joy. Crossing a threshold gives you a different sense of the present. You feel, on that threshold, a momentary collision of present and future. You promise yourself that in the future, you’ll be better at celebrating the present.

But how do you live in the present? How do you live any which way? I think part of why the advice to burn the candles appeals to me is that it’s not just saying “Live in the present” but “Don’t stockpile joy.” Also: “Know when to take things seriously, but know when to have a little fun with it.” This doesn’t come naturally to me, but that’s why it’s one of my Notes App life guidelines. They’re all a little aspirational; if I enacted them intuitively, they probably would’ve struck me as too obvious to write down.

I didn’t end up burning all my candles out by the time I left. I also didn’t end up finishing the loose-leaf tea I’d been stockpiling or the hair serum I’d meted out so sparingly. At first, I was annoyed at myself, but then I softened. I felt about my past self the way you would an overprotective parent—exasperated they don’t trust you to make your own way, but ultimately touched they loved you enough to save you a candle. Just in case you needed it.

Currently reading: Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV by Emily Nussbaum. Increasingly relevant IMO. And kudos to this team for a fantastic title.

Non-urgent thought of the week: When we say someone is boring, is that a reflection on a lack of personal overlap (“We have nothing to talk about!”), or are some people just universally dull? Send me your thoughts!

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