How writing ‘My Old Ass’ made me learn to appreciate change

If you had asked my slightly younger ass three years ago why I wrote a movie about an 18-year-old who meets her 39-year-old self during a life-changing mushroom trip while camping with her friends, I would have said, “I have no idea why.”

Looking back now, I think it was because I actually had my own version of a life-changing mushroom trip one night in my childhood bedroom, except I was completely sober, and I didn’t kiss Aubrey Plaza. A night when I realized that time had suddenly gone from being something that felt like an afterthought to being my worst and most vicious enemy.

I had just had a baby, which is terrifying (and beautiful, all at the same time). I was home in Canada, where the movie takes place, sleeping in my childhood bedroom where three generations of my family have lived — the window open on a hot summer night, listening to the rapids of the river that flows through the property. I felt safer than I could remember feeling in years.

Then I started panicking. Realizing that, wow, there was a night when I was probably 16 or 17 that I walked up the stairs, said goodnight to my parents, brushed my teeth and went to sleep with my whole family — my sister, my mom and my dad, just us four — under the same roof one last time before life happened. And everything changed. My sister went off to university. I moved away. Sure, you come back to visit, but it’s … different. And it made me really sad.

Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza in “My Old Ass.”

(Marni Grossman/Prime Video)

How many more “lasts” was I going to experience but not know it was the last time? How could I savor those moments more? Why did summers suddenly feel short and not endless? Why, when I looked at my daughter splashing in a puddle, did I feel indescribable joy but a split second later feel a knife slice through my chest because I knew the moment would soon become a memory? All of it would be a memory. I didn’t know how to metabolize this new fear of time.

I wondered what would feel different if I could go back and tell myself to appreciate that night in my bedroom. To savor it. But I’m such an anxious person; I hate change, I hate goodbyes. I knew it would have ruined it for me. So maybe it was better not to know. The thought made me want to explore the conversation further. This became “My Old Ass.”

I’m a nontraditional writer. When I open Final Draft and I start working, I don’t know exactly where it’s going to go. I don’t write outlines. In fact, I was just asked to do one for the first time, and I didn’t know how, so I secretly wrote the entire script because it was easier for me than making the outline. I start on Page 1 and see where the characters take me. I write because I’m trying to figure out something deeply personal, a fear, a feeling or a memory. I hear their voices; I say the dialogue out loud as I write it. I try not to think about the end or go back and reread what I’ve written until I’m pretty deep in.

Since I made this movie, a lot in my life has changed. I had another baby. My father died while I was 38 weeks pregnant with that baby. A boy whom we’ve named after him. I was driving the other day, thinking about all I’m feeling, and my first instinct was to create a world and a character and have them figure out what I was feeling through a conversation with another fake person I created. I laughed out loud thinking, “God, my brain is weird. How do normal people process this kind of thing?” It feels so weird but also the safest, most therapeutic and sacred part of the creative process for me.

I think I know now why my old ass made this movie. To help me understand that, yes, time is cruel. Goodbyes are hard. Hellos are exciting. Life is short. And beautiful and crazy all at the same time. Everything becomes a memory. Writing and making this movie is now an (incredible) memory. This morning, my daughter kissed my cheek and said, “I love you, Mama,” and then asked if she could have her Cheerios with chocolate milk (no). A memory now. My baby belly-laughed today for the first time. I smiled so much my face hurt for an hour. Time isn’t the enemy. The fear of time is. So, go live. Make a memory your future self will thank you for.