Morgan Longford
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Be the ballerina.
I became a ballerina when I was 29 years old. So, let’s just get that whole, “you’re never too old to try new things” inspirational speech out of the way right now. Because honestly, it’s more or less true. It is never too late to try new things, to learn new things, to reinvent yourself- none of it. The only reason people don’t try new things is fear. And fuck fear. It’s stupid. Fear holds us back from everything magical that our lives could be. It doesn’t even have to be anything monumental to shift your entire life, or at least outlook. Maybe you just try a new food, lets say some Greek dish, and you love it so much that you end up flying to Greece to try that same food in a restaurant that serves it authentically and with local ingredients, and while you’re there you buy a pair of pants and when you come home, you are wearing them to the grocery store and someone stops you to tell you how gorgeous you are and next thing you know you are cast in a movie and now you are a star. All because you ate a dolma, I don’t know.
By Morgan Longford2 years ago in Humans
Roller Skates:
I got my first pair of roller skates in roughly 2016. Not my first-first pair, I got those as a kid. But my first new pair as an adult, and I did it long before the pandemic came around and brought a resurgence of roller skating with it. I know, I know, this sounds very much like a I-knew-about-it-before-it-was-cool thing, and maybe it is a little bit. I am a 90’s kid, born in 1980, with a hint of gen-x and a penchant for uncool things so OK, I will give it to you. I do want you to know I wanted to roller skate before roller skating was cool. Like listening to Dashboard Confessional.
By Morgan Longford2 years ago in Humans
Witches and Science and Rocks, Oh My
I’ve been thinking about this since Thursday. It was one of those, “crap, I posted my article, but I feel like this should have been a part of it, an expansion of it, the thing that really drives it home” moments. It came just moments after publishing, and after spending several hours writing that article but I didn’t want to pull it, my brain was tired, and it was just going to have to be good enough. Ironically enough, it was apparently perfect as it was because it was chosen as a top story. So, there is certainly a lesson in there somewhere.
By Morgan Longford2 years ago in Humans
Multipotentiality and All That Jazz. Top Story - January 2024.
I learned a new word this week: MULTIPOTENTIALITY. Honestly, I don’t even know if it is a real word, but as I sit here and type this into a word document and it isn’t underlined in red, I am inclined to think it is. It was just a comment someone left on a social media post, and probably meant to be relatively empowering yet casual, but let me tell you- that word hit me with the weight of a thousand stars. Multipotentiality.
By Morgan Longford2 years ago in Humans
The Time I Almost Married Jake Gyllenhaal
‘Twas Winter, in the year of our Lord 2011 (roughly,) when I almost married Jake Gyllenhaal. Jake Gyllenhaal has been a celebrity crush since the Donnie Darko days, picking up steam in the Bubble Boy era, and gradually growing stronger and stronger. You may think adult women don’t get celebrity crushes, but you’d be wrong. We do. Sometimes, they are childhood crushes that have followed us into adulthood, and sometimes it is a new, budding imaginary romance in middle age, but I don’t know that we ever move past them. So anyhoo. Jake Gyllenhaal.
By Morgan Longford2 years ago in Humans
Plastic Bowls and Other Proclivities
I’m learning how to slow down. We may as well add that to the list of things I am learning about myself. Coincidentally, learning how to slow down, and actually putting it into practice, is how I am also learning new things about myself. Some of these things you would think I would know by now, given that I am 43 years old. (This may turn into a series, TBD.) But, it is strange how little we know about ourselves, quite honestly. Part of being human is learning how to interact with other humans, and for most of us, that is how a good chunk of our waking life is spent: learning how to interact with other humans. We learn social norms, verbal and non-verbal cues that tell us how to act; we learn what we should say and do around other people, and we learn how to have a conversation and how to connect with others, even if it is just at the cash register of your corner coffee shop. What this means, however, is that we spend most of our lives, honestly, learning about how to exist, learning about other people, learning new skills, etc., but really zero time learning about ourselves. Which is why, at 42 years old, I learned that I don’t like using ceramic bowls and plates.
By Morgan Longford2 years ago in Humans
The Sun and The Shift
Something is shifting inside me, inside my consciousness or in the place my self-awareness lives, or my self-esteem. Maybe the shift is wrapped in self-love or self-confidence. I’ve been exploring timeline shifts, quantum leaps, and the idea that every version of ourselves already exists, so that if we just visualize our future selves in the future house/clothes/career/whatever, we can shift our entire trajectory just by placing ourselves in the exact circumstances we want to be in in our minds. So maybe it’s that. Maybe I’m feeling different because I am mid-shift.
By Morgan Longford2 years ago in Confessions
La Quinta Nights
Since November 27th, I’ve been working on an essay about why I am a grinch. I have spent probably hours really sitting with my feelings and sorting out why the holidays make me feel this way, and carefully crafting them into a piece to publish. But now, I am in the holiday spirit, and it doesn’t feel right to publish that right before Christmas for a variety of reasons, so on the shelf like an elf it goes until at least January. It seems like a shame to finally sort out all those personal, complicated feelings about the holidays and not share them with strangers, but four days before Christmas is not the time and place. My therapist and best friend would be proud. So instead, on this winter solstice, from a hotel bed in downtown Austin, I will tell you about La Quinta nights and why everyone needs one from time to time, (as well as why I want to live in one and it is a very solid argument.)
By Morgan Longford2 years ago in Lifehack
December
The last few weeks have been hectic, in good ways, bad ways, all the ways. I really want to create a thoughtful essay, and I have a long list waiting in the wings that I hope to tackle in the next few weeks. But since it is the season of giving, I will give you another poem. It is from my collection, Catching Dusk With Our Teeth, available for pre-order here. It is also currently available in Kindle format if you don’t want to wait.
By Morgan Longford2 years ago in Poets
