Thank you for taking the time to read my essays. Your support means so much to me. If you enjoy these newsletters, please consider sharing Moxie with friends via email or on social media. You can also upgrade to a paid subscription which entitles you to an additional essay every Tuesday. Your support of my work allows me to keep writing on this platform and to keep making free content- with minimal ads- on other platforms. Regardless of subscription level, thank you for being here, I love you and am grateful for your support.
My girls, my loves, my sisters in christ,
I hope that each of you have a summer where your work schedule is light and your friendships are deep. I hope you go out far too late on far too many weeknights and are overdressed almost always. I hope you kiss too many boys (or girls!) and go on long walks and eat French fries and laugh for hours with your best friend. Take photos on the street and post them. Do not take photos on your very best nights out because you are living in the moment and for yourself, not for the internet.
I hope you go on a date with low expectations and then have a very nice time. I hope you wear too much perfume and too little make-up and drink Negronis and split too many dishes. Embrace the nervous excitement while you wait for another date. Tell too many silly stories and speak to too many people. Leave when you want, tell people they are being rude. Ask men what their age filter is set to on Hinge and scold them if it’s creepy. When you see a gorgeous, well dressed woman on the street tell her she’s hot and that you like her shoes. She’s your sister, not your competition.
Lie to people in bars. Tell them that you and your friend grew up together on a commune in the midwest and that you’ve never been to New York before. Pay for your own drinks so men will leave you alone or let them buy your $30 martini and then dance away. Have ice cream for lunch and tuna tartar for dinner and wake up early and go for a run when you do not want to. Wear your new shoes even though you might ruin them. Embrace the heat, get another stupid tattoo and learn to blow dry your own hair instead of sitting through endless dry bar appointments. Buy too many throw pillows and take sexy selfies that you’ll never send to anyone. Send them to a man if you feel like it.
Text back or don’t. Cancel at the last minute or confirm plans too early. Drink enough water and get enough sleep. Be kind and fun loving and go out alone. Say your friend just canceled and make a new friends with girls at the bar next to you. Irish exit the weird party, take your vitamins and eat your greens. Call someone you’ve been fighting with for two long. Chat before the emotions get to you. Embrace your vices and then give them up. Wear shoes that clash with your outfit.
I hope you have a summer like that because you will fall madly and deeply and irreparably in love with the person who will be there for you and put your first no matter what. You’ll love yourself so much that you’ll become the sexiest most powerful person in the world and you will keep smiling and laughing and you will learn that magnetism isn’t only for very young women and very old men, it’s for anyone ready to embrace joy.
I love you and I love me and I wish you so much happiness,
Hannah