My Old Ass and Brief Spooky Season Updates

Mainly, this post is just about me getting wrecked by the movie, My Old Ass (2024).

WARNING: THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE, MY OLD ASS (2024).

Recently, Matt and I went to see the movie, My Old Ass. I was expecting Superbad or Booksmart vibes, but instead, I got Click vibes. It was highly unexpected. Although, maybe it wouldn’t have been such a shock if I had known more about the movie. I watched one trailer for it, and it looked fun and silly. And Aubrey Plaza was in it.

Aubrey Plaza is one of the women I’d follow off the face of the planet, so really, I didn’t need to know anything else. 

Thankfully, we were the only ones in the auditorium for this one. Sobbing by the end of it was not how I expected to spend the afternoon or the weekend. I was taking psychic damage from the movie for days after. I am feeling mostly recovered, but I am certain I could cry again at the drop of a hat if I give the movie too much thought. I’ll probably get myself upset writing about it today. 

SPOILERS AHEAD. THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING. The rest of this post is NOT SAFE. 

The movie is about an eighteen year old named Elliott who does magic shrooms with her friends and while tripping, she sees her older self and asks for advice on life. Her older self says spend more time with your family, avoid a guy named Chad.

18 year old Elliott and 39 year old Elliott stay in contact throughout the movie.

 Eighteen year old Elliott meets Chad and tries to avoid him, except she can’t figure out why he’s so bad. He seems great. She slowly falls in love with him. 

It’s scary for her because up until this point she had only dated women. So yay for bisexual representation! It’s also scary because her older self specifically told her to avoid this guy. But she cannot figure out why. 

She confronts her older self about it. Why should I avoid him? He seems great. 

And 39 year old Elliott says, you’re not going to find anything wrong with him. He is great. You love him. But he dies. And no, there’s nothing you can do to stop it. He dies after you’ve fallen so far in love with him you can’t imagine loving anyone else. 

And then Chad catches the two of them arguing. And they are astonished he can see the older Elliott, so they pretend she’s someone else. And then older Elliott gets to hug Chad. 

The movie ends on a slightly more upbeat note. But that’s the moment that broke me. 

And I am sobbing just trying to write it up. Here’s another round of psychic damage for the day. This movie. I swear, I might never recover fully from it. 

In the end, the movie’s messaging was be present, live your life, don’t try to avoid good things just to not hurt later. 

This movie is literally my worst fear. At one point in the movie, 18 year old Elliott asks 39 year old Elliott if Mom dies and she says, “Mom can’t die. She has to outlive me!” 

That hit hard for me because I used to say that all the time. All of the time. 

After Mom died, Matt dying became one of my worst fears. Not only him, but everyone. I was afraid of anyone around me dying. I still feel it sometimes. But back then, right after Mom’s death, I had a bunch of traumatic scenarios play out in my head completely unprompted. I was at the mercy of my brain. I couldn’t …figure out how to turn them off. 

The scenes were typically similar to this: 

I’d get a call. Someone was dead. Usually, Matt, sometimes …others. Depending on the scenario, I had to go identify them or just had to come say goodbye or attend a funeral. 

I’d get the call, I’d go and see their dead body. Then in the scenario, life would play out with that person dead instead of alive. 

And it was …difficult. I think I saw most of my loved ones dead in that first year after Mom was dead. When I say loved ones I do mean both friends and family…this trauma scenario did not discriminate. 

It was lonely and disorienting. 

I had already trouble with vulnerability and feeling close to people for other reasons, and then to add that to the mix was miserable. 

In the end, I also learned I need to be present, need to enjoy what I do get. 

This movie really articulates so much that brings me comfort. To feel like my situation is universal, it makes me feel much less alone in all of that. 

The movie is wonderful. I cannot imagine not having seen it. 

I cannot recommend it enough. But please watch it when you’re able to handle deep psychic damage.

I could go on about the good and the bad from this movie, but I should stop before I get too upset to have a good rest of my day. I will just say that if I have to keep outliving people I love, then I hope in the future that I am lucky enough to time travel just to hug my loved ones one more time long after the loss. 

The funny part of seeing this movie was the timing. I have been doing some really intense stuff in my professional life for the month of October. It’s involved a lot of preparation, a lot of practice, and a lot of poise and positive energy. Seeing this movie destroyed me, and processing the experience had to be put on hold until I was past the Big Professionalism of the month. 

If nothing else, it proved that I could absolutely still compartmentalize like a boss. I have felt that skill has been weakening a bit, but no, I still can do it much better than I realized. 

I just cannot get over what a blessing and a curse getting to hug Chad one more time must have been for older Elliott.  I just…cannot imagine. Yet, I can. I would kill for that moment. 

Aubrey Plaza being funny yet being able to deliver some of the most soul-crushing moments in her roles, I truly admire that. I am nervous as hell to see how she destroys me in Agatha All Along, because of how this movie treated me.

I’ll be getting this on Blu-ray as soon as I can. 

Anyway, that was an unexpected break from Spooky Halloween celebrations. 

A list of more Halloween-ing I’ve done: 

More Silent Hill 2

More Magic the Gathering: Duskmourn 

Pumpkin patch

Agatha All Along the show

Agatha All Along the soundtrack

Those are the things I’ve done since my last post about October. 

Things I’m still planning to do:

More spooky movies

Pagan: Fate of Roanoke (board game)

Halloween TTRPG one shot game(s)

OH! Also, Matt got me the Aubrey Plaza Agatha All Along promo as a poster as a gift for getting through Big Professionalism. which I’m hoping we can hang soon. 

Soon, I will get my fall vaccines and be laid out for a few days from that. I was going to do that earlier in the month, but Big Professionalism was something I needed to stay sharp and alert for and during and needed to operate at 100% to be able to achieve. Very soon, I will have some time where I’ll be able to be out of commission for a few days, so I’m going to do my vaccines during that time. Kind of looking forward to it solely to get it over and done with. 

OKAY. That’s all I have for today. 

Thank you for reading.