Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret
05.19.23
I have a pretty cool job because I am on the team of a lively production company. When I joined there were two employees and now we have 8 full-time staff. It has been a fun adventure to see the company evolve to where it is now.
We went on a field trip recently to The Grove in LA to see the latest Julie Bloom film adaptation Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret.
The coming of age story that centers around sexual discovery and identity would not typically be the thing I pay to see in the theatre so I was glad for the group outing that created the opportunity see and with my coworkers no less. Julie Bloom authored another an IP that my company is adapting for TV, which made it the right timing.
If anyone knows me, I have a habit that I observe circumstances, and I learn lessons. And there were two realizations I had as I screened this movie.
Backstory: The film is set in the 1970s and is about a pre-teen girl, Margaret, who moves from her comfortable family apartment in NYC to the suburbs of Jersey following her dad’s promotion in the 1970s. Margaret, her mother and father move into North East suburbia— think single-family homes with large lawns and a car in the driveway. Margaret is distressed because she has to start over socially weeks before starting 6th grade. When her gregarious next door neighbor, Jen, appears on her porch the day after they move in, Margaret is all too eager to follow whatever zainy rules Jen sets in order to join and stay a member of her ultra secret, very mature club. Rules include everyone has to wear a bra (whether are developed enough to need them or not), doing exercises to grow their breasts, and announcing to all which boy they have a crush and when they get their period.
Margaret becomes obsessed with growing her breasts and starting her period. Her sun rises and falls at Jen’s declaration of what is “cool”. Not having started her period is a major driving force for her character’s conflict as she feels on the outside without it. This is second only to her quest for finding a religion.
All along, as I’m watching I’m thinking 'Girlfriend, what you are itching and crying and fiending for is not that deep. Don’t be so eager to start your period because once you do, it don’t stop. Ever. The first one or two is exciting and the rest are, well, things you work around.'
The same with wearing a bra. I kind of laughed at how she was freaking about non-problems. She wears a bra that she does not need (because she is very flat chested) to be part of the club. But I’m like 'Girlfriend, wearing bras is not all it’s cracked up to be. The novelty wears off quick and you kind of don’t want to wear them. They aren’t that comfortable. '
While I smirked at all of Margaret’s first world problems, I realized there are phases of life I am eager to reach and have been bemoaning that I have not been able to reach. That the same advice could apply.
It’s no secret I’m in my early 30s, and I am never married, don’t have kids. I’m getting to the age where I can look to the left and right at my agemates and see those who chose families are bearing the fruit. I went to a baby shower for a couple in their 30s who are expecting their third child just last week. I can see others who have chosen partners or spouses and are bearing fruit of decisions to integrate another into their life. I made different choices— and in my 30s I realize more concretely how singleness is a choice. Not simply a byproduct of other factors, which is how I viewed it in my 20s.
For longer than I was aware, I considered myself less than or not quite enough because I was single. Like there is something I didn’t do right, or enough of, and because of that I have not been able to cross the threshold into this phase of womanhood that includes marriage and motherhood.
But what if, the stage of womanhood that includes marriage and motherhood is simply another evolution of life that, once crossed you never go back. And once you are there you wonder, what was all the rush?
“Once bras start, they never end. So enjoy the strengths of the season you are in now.”
Is what I would tell Margaret if I could talk to her.
And to myself, I say: Once wifey starts, it never ends. The cleaning, cooking, sexing. It never stops. So rather than rush into the next season, enjoy the season you are in.
There are strengths to singleness. Lisa Bevere has a great teaching on it where she encourages us to find the strength of every season of your life. I can make major career and life changes. I can literally go after God with everything within me. I can travel, I can dream. I can curate my life plans with no one but God that I am accountable to. I can save, invest, stay out late. I can invest in myself and my gifts with no accountably outside of the Holy Spirit within me.
I am leaning into life, loudly. That’s part of the EAT, PRAY, LAUGH motto.
Would I recommend the film? I know the title is buzzy and the book has been on banned lists, Perhaps because of the way women’s mensuration is described. I’m less familiar with the conversation. But it didn’t feel overly unclean or sexual to me. It shows pre-teens doing adult like things, but it was not majorly explicit. I actually found Margaret’s spiritual exploration intriguing and one of my favorite parts of the film.
Can you relate to the ‘enjoy where you are now’ motto? Have you seen the film? If so, what did you think?