Too Much to Dream: Childhood, Adulthood, Anxiety, and Growing Up
“How do you separate reality from
illusion when you have been steeped in make-believe your whole life? ”
—Natalie Wood
“How strange when an illusion dies. It’s as if you’ve lost a child.”
—Judy Garland
I recently finished reading Suzanne Finstad’s Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood, which marks the first biography I’ve ever read in completion. I decided to buy a copy after watching an episode of the documentary series Too Young to Die that focused on the life and death of Natalie Wood, an actress and star I hadn’t previously known too much about. Since watching that episode and reading the biography, I’ve gathered much more insight into her life, and have thought about how she has come to resonate with me. One of the few women in history to have a successful, long career as both a child actress and an adult star, Natalie Wood began working in movies when she was four years old. Her mother, Maria—a Russian immigrant—not only created and raised her for stardom but also robbed her of her childhood by feeding her an endless stream of lies and make-believe—most of which Natalie held dear until she was an adult. Maria refused to let her play with other children growing up, holding her to such a high standard of perfection that she believed most other children weren’t good enough to play with her daughter, and would hold her back from stardom. But at the same time, Maria instilled in her daughter a fear and terror of being alone—teaching her that she should never be. As a result, Natalie came to believe that her large collection of stuffed animals could speak to her; they became her only real friends and comforted her from her inner fear of solitude (she maintained this ritual into adulthood; allegedly being unable to fly without her stuffed animals to comfort her as a grown woman). Maria also didn’t believe in doctors—when Natalie broke her wrist on a movie set as a child, her mother refused to bring her to a doctor and the injury healed improperly causing her left wrist to appear deformed; she hid it behind bracelets for the rest of her life—and fed her an elaborate series of other lies about life that led Natalie to believe she could never trust anyone, or appear imperfect in any way. As a teenager and young adult, she struggled enormously with trying to figure out what was real and what was make-believe. Having been fed nothing but lies about real-life by her mother for her entire childhood, Natalie fought personal demons surrounding this crisis of identity for the remainder of her life, with some describing her as always living in a scary, upside down fairy tale. “She wanted somewhere … she wanted a world, outside the world that was created for her: the child actress, the Warner Brothers contract; that mother, the dragon. She was living a frightening fairy tale.”
I’ve come to realize that the stories of Natalie Wood, and other stars of the same era with similar struggles such as Marilyn Monroe or Judy Garland, resonate with me not because I feel as though I too was robbed of a childhood—quite the opposite, actually. Adults carrying their childhood anxieties into adulthood resonates with me because I believe that I have always been apprehensive about growing up. These women, like Natalie—whose unresolved issues in their childhood resulted in major personal pains and inner demons for them as adults—resonate with me because I think the concept of “growing up” is a myth; a social construct. I know that sounds incredibly cliché. There are countless Walt Disney posters where he is allegedly quoted as saying “you’re never too old for Disney” and “that’s the problem with most people; they grow up.” The notion of maintaining one’s “inner child” is hardly new. That’s indeed where the belief that you are never too old for a Disney movie came from; adults who managed to maintain their inner child and still find enjoyment from media that is made for children. Some people are against that. According to a recent popular tweet, adults “too into” Disney are evil. Some people can’t grasp the concept or think twice about why a fully grown adult might be latching onto something that is made for children. It’s because they didn’t want to grow up; they didn’t ask for it. They didn’t ask for life to suddenly become more complicated. They didn’t ask for life to become so difficult that finding something that brings joy would become even more difficult than life itself. That’s why many adults still identify so strongly with something that brought them joy as children; because adulthood has significantly less joy than childhood, and most of the time joy made for adults is less fun and harder to understand. Rather than fall into a depression over this realization—as I certainly did—we hold our grip tight to the things we loved as kids. It helps remind us that you don’t have to stop loving what you loved as a child in order to “grow up” or “be an adult”—those are notions created by unhappy adults who internalized what other unhappy adults told them. In fact, what you loved as a kid is going to help you figure out your identity as an adult. But many people still don’t believe this. Reality is too harsh all too often for most to embrace that. That’s why old stars like Natalie Wood resonate with me—because she was robbed of a childhood, she struggled to find her footing as an adult and how to figure out how the world works, because she had been steeped in make-believe her entire life. That’s how I feel. Sometimes I feel like I’ve spent too much of my life engrossed in fiction—in make-believe that would comfort me when I was feeling anxious—that it’s my own fault when I feel unprepared for reality. As much as I know and preach that we need continue nurturing what we loved as children so that love will grow with us, I do also know that most of the world and reality does not work that way. So when I can read about other adults who carried their childhood demons into adulthood, and how much easier it could be if we could continue as the same being forever, I identify with them. I know and understand their pain, not because I wasn’t allowed the space to dream as a child, but because I’ve had too much to dream.
It’s the honest truth, and quite possibly one of the only ways to fully explain who I am now. Growing up, I wasn’t outgoing. I was shy, and labelled as such. As an only child and an introvert, I very quickly learned that I preferred the company of books, movies, and music over the company of people. Making friends has always been incredibly difficult, because other people’s company could rarely compete with my own. I also quickly became, as I’ve already discussed, an incredibly dedicated student who was obsessed with perfection and scared of uncertainty. Somewhere along the way, I got it into my head that my version of living—in a bubble of introversion, surrounded by my books and my movies and the stuffed animals I would talk to as we watched—was not how “grown-ups” acted. I came to believe, based on the negative opinions of others, that in order to “grow up,” I would someday have to leave behind the introverted only child who preferred books over people and become an extroverted, happy, and passionate adult, because that was the only way I was taught I could survive in reality. By the time I was a teenager—when not wanting to socialize only ostracizes you further—I developed a growing anxiety that the expiration date of my “childish ways,” a.k.a. living in fiction, avoiding human interaction, and believing that books were the only other company I would ever need, was rapidly approaching. I internalized the looks and glances by those who misunderstood me as a child, not understanding how I could sit still and read for so long or prefer my own company over anyone else’s. Their glances told me that, in order to survive in this world, I would have to let go of those things in order to grow up. That I would have to change who I am in order to achieve adulthood. Those anxieties only grew when my friends would start yearning to watch R-rated movies, acting differently in order to gain the attention of someone else, or drinking and smoking all in the name of appearing “cool” and therefore more “grown up.” For as long as I can remember, I never had a yearning to grow up. I just never did. I guess I developed my own version of Peter Pan syndrome, where I would have been content with reading books, watching movies, and only interacting with my parents for the rest of my life—and not having to face the things that scared me: appearing outgoing, extroverted, or happy every single day of my life (things which are, all things considered, wildly unrealistic).
Since it had been fed to me that who I was as a child would have to change in order for me to be a successful adult, my anxiety around “growing up” only intensified as I got older. I had internalized so deeply the untrue notion that there was no such thing as an introverted adult; that every person had to “grow up” by suddenly developing an outgoing sense of confidence, strength, and passion—traits that are supposedly built throughout your childhood. I believed that if I didn’t magically develop those qualities, I would never survive the adult world—I would never survive reality. It got to a point where I suddenly realized that I had been living by other people’s definitions of “growing up” for too long. In 2017, when I got my first ever long-term part-time job as a dishwasher and maintenance employee in a restaurant, I got it into my head that this was it—I didn’t have to struggle anymore. Finding a job, any job where I could thrive without changing the essential parts of myself, had been an immense source of anxiety and depression for the better part of the year prior. So when I got this job, one where I could do my job without having to talk to anyone, I truly felt like that was it: I had usurped everyone’s judgments of me and who I was by finding a job despite my introversion, and I felt like I could start living a life that was anxiety-free for the first time ever. But I hadn’t stopped long enough to realize that the fact that purposely spending the better part of my life inside books and fiction, and ignoring the things that scared me, had left me so unbelievably unprepared for reality. I soon fell hard on my ass into a deep depression. I didn’t understand; I had everything figured out! Why was I suddenly so anxious and depressed again? The answer ended up being something I always knew, but was again too scared to face. Despite the fact that I know now there is no one set definition of “growing up,” that everyone is unique and beautiful in their own ways, it doesn’t mean we can continue pretending that reality—especially realities we are scared of—don’t exist. That was my problem. I was so eager to let go of this anxiety over fulfilling other people’s definitions of growing up that I didn’t realize I would also have to let go of my fear of facing some realities—such as plain, cold-hearted adult responsibilities—in order to truly continue growing as a person. I’d spent too much time in living in both fiction and childlike mindsets; staying there longer than I should have, simply because I was scared. It wasn’t that I needed reminders to “never grow up” or “never stop dreaming”—it was that I’d had too much to dream, and it was time to face some cruel realities.
Natalie Wood was plagued by anxiety and depression for the better part of her life. She was known for blaming her anxious behavior on her “neuroses,” often claiming they were the reason for her constant changes in weight and appearance. During her first marriage to Robert Wagner, she began seeing a psychoanalyst to learn how to “just be,” struggling to reclaim the identity that was lost to her as a child, when she became a movie star. “I didn’t know who the hell I was,” she said. “I was whoever they wanted me to be, they being agents, producers, directors, or whoever else I was trying to please at the time.” Doesn’t that sound like childhood to you? If we state the obvious fact that not all children become famous actors, how is any child to ever know who the hell they really are? Childhood is a time riddled with anxiety. Everyone is bigger than you, everything has to be taught or explained—often in the form of make-believe—with the intent of preparing you for being a successful adult. But these standards often lead to developing obsessions with perfection and control—as Natalie Wood did, and as did I. Most adults don’t realize the unrealistically high standards they set for children. For Natalie Wood, it was appearing perfect all the time so she could receive film contracts and achieve stardom, but for most children it’s appearing perfect so you will achieve perfect grades and a perfect work ethic that will allegedly prepare you for later on. I not only wanted everything to be perfect so that I could fend off feelings of uncertainty, but also so that who I was would feel validated. That the teacher would see that what I lack in social skills, I make up for in work ethic and attention to schoolwork, and commend me for it. If something went wrong, or some sort of failure occurred, I was always met with the overwhelming concern that someone would love me less. That all of the perfect work I had done before would be forgotten. We don’t teach children that failure is normal and natural. We teach them that perfection is the way to go—and for some, it creates impossibly high standards and a great deal of anxiety that most of us carry into adulthood. Natalie Wood’s yearning to learn how to “just be” as an adult is all too real for anyone who has had too much to dream—not only is reality cruel, but when you grow up with the idea that you can somehow obtain control over everything and make it all perfect, it’s impeccably hard to learn how to accept uncertainty. When you feel as though you’ve been steeped in make-believe your entire life—purposely or otherwise—it’s only to be expected that you will have a hard time just existing. “Just being” is hard, especially when you are automatically wired to expect perfection and control.
The moral of it all is one we’ve already seen multiple times: life doesn’t work like that! It just doesn’t. It’s awful and it’s terrible and it’s hard. It’s SO hard. Say it out loud a few times if you need to! Life. Is. Hard. Being. A. Human. Is. Hard. Curling up with things that brought comfort for too long only end up causing less comfort later on. But at the same time, it’s important to truly acknowledge, once and for all, that there is no one set definition of what it means to grow up. Everyone does it in their own way and at their own pace, and that is completely fine. You can accept the cruel realities, and still love the things you loved as a child with all of your heart. You can let go of who you used to be in favor of growth, while also retaining parts of yourself who you will be forever. You can accept that adult life was never what you thought it was going to be or that you never thought it would be this hard, while also celebrating that life is hard for everyone. It might be harder for some over others, but life as a whole is hard for everyone and you must remember that. Growing up is hard for everyone, whether you realize it or not. Everyone goes on the same but different journey to figuring out who the hell they are, because you’re not going to know that as a child. It’s so difficult and it’s so uncomfortable, but I figure that has to be part of the point. And even if you’ve had too much to dream, that doesn’t mean you have to ever stop dreaming. It just means that you can’t forget to dip your toe back into reality every once in awhile.
“ Anyone can see that I’ve had too much to dream
I’m singing ‘til I’m screaming, dancing ‘til I’m bleeding
A cruel reality when you’ve had too much to dream
Better keep your eyes shut, ‘cause you don’t wanna wake up ”
—Allie X, “Too Much to Dream”
“I wanted to stay like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Life wasn’t as complicated then. But I can’t help myself growing up. No one can. Life won’t stop and life won’t stand still. But I have a feeling if I just look backward once in awhile at Dorothy, if I am off beat in any way, I will get back on the sound track again … Dorothy and I thought a lot alike when I made The Wizard of Oz. I like to think we still do.”
—Judy Garland
(Recommended listening for this essay: “Too Much to Dream” by Allie X, “Sweet Beginnings” by Bebe Rexha, “Vienna” by Billy Joel, “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac, and “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” by Bebe Rexha)
Follow It's Not That Deep on Instagram — @areyouthereanxiety — and listen to my playlist of mental health songs on Spotify and Apple Music
—Natalie Wood
“How strange when an illusion dies. It’s as if you’ve lost a child.”
—Judy Garland
I recently finished reading Suzanne Finstad’s Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood, which marks the first biography I’ve ever read in completion. I decided to buy a copy after watching an episode of the documentary series Too Young to Die that focused on the life and death of Natalie Wood, an actress and star I hadn’t previously known too much about. Since watching that episode and reading the biography, I’ve gathered much more insight into her life, and have thought about how she has come to resonate with me. One of the few women in history to have a successful, long career as both a child actress and an adult star, Natalie Wood began working in movies when she was four years old. Her mother, Maria—a Russian immigrant—not only created and raised her for stardom but also robbed her of her childhood by feeding her an endless stream of lies and make-believe—most of which Natalie held dear until she was an adult. Maria refused to let her play with other children growing up, holding her to such a high standard of perfection that she believed most other children weren’t good enough to play with her daughter, and would hold her back from stardom. But at the same time, Maria instilled in her daughter a fear and terror of being alone—teaching her that she should never be. As a result, Natalie came to believe that her large collection of stuffed animals could speak to her; they became her only real friends and comforted her from her inner fear of solitude (she maintained this ritual into adulthood; allegedly being unable to fly without her stuffed animals to comfort her as a grown woman). Maria also didn’t believe in doctors—when Natalie broke her wrist on a movie set as a child, her mother refused to bring her to a doctor and the injury healed improperly causing her left wrist to appear deformed; she hid it behind bracelets for the rest of her life—and fed her an elaborate series of other lies about life that led Natalie to believe she could never trust anyone, or appear imperfect in any way. As a teenager and young adult, she struggled enormously with trying to figure out what was real and what was make-believe. Having been fed nothing but lies about real-life by her mother for her entire childhood, Natalie fought personal demons surrounding this crisis of identity for the remainder of her life, with some describing her as always living in a scary, upside down fairy tale. “She wanted somewhere … she wanted a world, outside the world that was created for her: the child actress, the Warner Brothers contract; that mother, the dragon. She was living a frightening fairy tale.”
I’ve come to realize that the stories of Natalie Wood, and other stars of the same era with similar struggles such as Marilyn Monroe or Judy Garland, resonate with me not because I feel as though I too was robbed of a childhood—quite the opposite, actually. Adults carrying their childhood anxieties into adulthood resonates with me because I believe that I have always been apprehensive about growing up. These women, like Natalie—whose unresolved issues in their childhood resulted in major personal pains and inner demons for them as adults—resonate with me because I think the concept of “growing up” is a myth; a social construct. I know that sounds incredibly cliché. There are countless Walt Disney posters where he is allegedly quoted as saying “you’re never too old for Disney” and “that’s the problem with most people; they grow up.” The notion of maintaining one’s “inner child” is hardly new. That’s indeed where the belief that you are never too old for a Disney movie came from; adults who managed to maintain their inner child and still find enjoyment from media that is made for children. Some people are against that. According to a recent popular tweet, adults “too into” Disney are evil. Some people can’t grasp the concept or think twice about why a fully grown adult might be latching onto something that is made for children. It’s because they didn’t want to grow up; they didn’t ask for it. They didn’t ask for life to suddenly become more complicated. They didn’t ask for life to become so difficult that finding something that brings joy would become even more difficult than life itself. That’s why many adults still identify so strongly with something that brought them joy as children; because adulthood has significantly less joy than childhood, and most of the time joy made for adults is less fun and harder to understand. Rather than fall into a depression over this realization—as I certainly did—we hold our grip tight to the things we loved as kids. It helps remind us that you don’t have to stop loving what you loved as a child in order to “grow up” or “be an adult”—those are notions created by unhappy adults who internalized what other unhappy adults told them. In fact, what you loved as a kid is going to help you figure out your identity as an adult. But many people still don’t believe this. Reality is too harsh all too often for most to embrace that. That’s why old stars like Natalie Wood resonate with me—because she was robbed of a childhood, she struggled to find her footing as an adult and how to figure out how the world works, because she had been steeped in make-believe her entire life. That’s how I feel. Sometimes I feel like I’ve spent too much of my life engrossed in fiction—in make-believe that would comfort me when I was feeling anxious—that it’s my own fault when I feel unprepared for reality. As much as I know and preach that we need continue nurturing what we loved as children so that love will grow with us, I do also know that most of the world and reality does not work that way. So when I can read about other adults who carried their childhood demons into adulthood, and how much easier it could be if we could continue as the same being forever, I identify with them. I know and understand their pain, not because I wasn’t allowed the space to dream as a child, but because I’ve had too much to dream.
It’s the honest truth, and quite possibly one of the only ways to fully explain who I am now. Growing up, I wasn’t outgoing. I was shy, and labelled as such. As an only child and an introvert, I very quickly learned that I preferred the company of books, movies, and music over the company of people. Making friends has always been incredibly difficult, because other people’s company could rarely compete with my own. I also quickly became, as I’ve already discussed, an incredibly dedicated student who was obsessed with perfection and scared of uncertainty. Somewhere along the way, I got it into my head that my version of living—in a bubble of introversion, surrounded by my books and my movies and the stuffed animals I would talk to as we watched—was not how “grown-ups” acted. I came to believe, based on the negative opinions of others, that in order to “grow up,” I would someday have to leave behind the introverted only child who preferred books over people and become an extroverted, happy, and passionate adult, because that was the only way I was taught I could survive in reality. By the time I was a teenager—when not wanting to socialize only ostracizes you further—I developed a growing anxiety that the expiration date of my “childish ways,” a.k.a. living in fiction, avoiding human interaction, and believing that books were the only other company I would ever need, was rapidly approaching. I internalized the looks and glances by those who misunderstood me as a child, not understanding how I could sit still and read for so long or prefer my own company over anyone else’s. Their glances told me that, in order to survive in this world, I would have to let go of those things in order to grow up. That I would have to change who I am in order to achieve adulthood. Those anxieties only grew when my friends would start yearning to watch R-rated movies, acting differently in order to gain the attention of someone else, or drinking and smoking all in the name of appearing “cool” and therefore more “grown up.” For as long as I can remember, I never had a yearning to grow up. I just never did. I guess I developed my own version of Peter Pan syndrome, where I would have been content with reading books, watching movies, and only interacting with my parents for the rest of my life—and not having to face the things that scared me: appearing outgoing, extroverted, or happy every single day of my life (things which are, all things considered, wildly unrealistic).
Since it had been fed to me that who I was as a child would have to change in order for me to be a successful adult, my anxiety around “growing up” only intensified as I got older. I had internalized so deeply the untrue notion that there was no such thing as an introverted adult; that every person had to “grow up” by suddenly developing an outgoing sense of confidence, strength, and passion—traits that are supposedly built throughout your childhood. I believed that if I didn’t magically develop those qualities, I would never survive the adult world—I would never survive reality. It got to a point where I suddenly realized that I had been living by other people’s definitions of “growing up” for too long. In 2017, when I got my first ever long-term part-time job as a dishwasher and maintenance employee in a restaurant, I got it into my head that this was it—I didn’t have to struggle anymore. Finding a job, any job where I could thrive without changing the essential parts of myself, had been an immense source of anxiety and depression for the better part of the year prior. So when I got this job, one where I could do my job without having to talk to anyone, I truly felt like that was it: I had usurped everyone’s judgments of me and who I was by finding a job despite my introversion, and I felt like I could start living a life that was anxiety-free for the first time ever. But I hadn’t stopped long enough to realize that the fact that purposely spending the better part of my life inside books and fiction, and ignoring the things that scared me, had left me so unbelievably unprepared for reality. I soon fell hard on my ass into a deep depression. I didn’t understand; I had everything figured out! Why was I suddenly so anxious and depressed again? The answer ended up being something I always knew, but was again too scared to face. Despite the fact that I know now there is no one set definition of “growing up,” that everyone is unique and beautiful in their own ways, it doesn’t mean we can continue pretending that reality—especially realities we are scared of—don’t exist. That was my problem. I was so eager to let go of this anxiety over fulfilling other people’s definitions of growing up that I didn’t realize I would also have to let go of my fear of facing some realities—such as plain, cold-hearted adult responsibilities—in order to truly continue growing as a person. I’d spent too much time in living in both fiction and childlike mindsets; staying there longer than I should have, simply because I was scared. It wasn’t that I needed reminders to “never grow up” or “never stop dreaming”—it was that I’d had too much to dream, and it was time to face some cruel realities.
Natalie Wood was plagued by anxiety and depression for the better part of her life. She was known for blaming her anxious behavior on her “neuroses,” often claiming they were the reason for her constant changes in weight and appearance. During her first marriage to Robert Wagner, she began seeing a psychoanalyst to learn how to “just be,” struggling to reclaim the identity that was lost to her as a child, when she became a movie star. “I didn’t know who the hell I was,” she said. “I was whoever they wanted me to be, they being agents, producers, directors, or whoever else I was trying to please at the time.” Doesn’t that sound like childhood to you? If we state the obvious fact that not all children become famous actors, how is any child to ever know who the hell they really are? Childhood is a time riddled with anxiety. Everyone is bigger than you, everything has to be taught or explained—often in the form of make-believe—with the intent of preparing you for being a successful adult. But these standards often lead to developing obsessions with perfection and control—as Natalie Wood did, and as did I. Most adults don’t realize the unrealistically high standards they set for children. For Natalie Wood, it was appearing perfect all the time so she could receive film contracts and achieve stardom, but for most children it’s appearing perfect so you will achieve perfect grades and a perfect work ethic that will allegedly prepare you for later on. I not only wanted everything to be perfect so that I could fend off feelings of uncertainty, but also so that who I was would feel validated. That the teacher would see that what I lack in social skills, I make up for in work ethic and attention to schoolwork, and commend me for it. If something went wrong, or some sort of failure occurred, I was always met with the overwhelming concern that someone would love me less. That all of the perfect work I had done before would be forgotten. We don’t teach children that failure is normal and natural. We teach them that perfection is the way to go—and for some, it creates impossibly high standards and a great deal of anxiety that most of us carry into adulthood. Natalie Wood’s yearning to learn how to “just be” as an adult is all too real for anyone who has had too much to dream—not only is reality cruel, but when you grow up with the idea that you can somehow obtain control over everything and make it all perfect, it’s impeccably hard to learn how to accept uncertainty. When you feel as though you’ve been steeped in make-believe your entire life—purposely or otherwise—it’s only to be expected that you will have a hard time just existing. “Just being” is hard, especially when you are automatically wired to expect perfection and control.
The moral of it all is one we’ve already seen multiple times: life doesn’t work like that! It just doesn’t. It’s awful and it’s terrible and it’s hard. It’s SO hard. Say it out loud a few times if you need to! Life. Is. Hard. Being. A. Human. Is. Hard. Curling up with things that brought comfort for too long only end up causing less comfort later on. But at the same time, it’s important to truly acknowledge, once and for all, that there is no one set definition of what it means to grow up. Everyone does it in their own way and at their own pace, and that is completely fine. You can accept the cruel realities, and still love the things you loved as a child with all of your heart. You can let go of who you used to be in favor of growth, while also retaining parts of yourself who you will be forever. You can accept that adult life was never what you thought it was going to be or that you never thought it would be this hard, while also celebrating that life is hard for everyone. It might be harder for some over others, but life as a whole is hard for everyone and you must remember that. Growing up is hard for everyone, whether you realize it or not. Everyone goes on the same but different journey to figuring out who the hell they are, because you’re not going to know that as a child. It’s so difficult and it’s so uncomfortable, but I figure that has to be part of the point. And even if you’ve had too much to dream, that doesn’t mean you have to ever stop dreaming. It just means that you can’t forget to dip your toe back into reality every once in awhile.
“ Anyone can see that I’ve had too much to dream
I’m singing ‘til I’m screaming, dancing ‘til I’m bleeding
A cruel reality when you’ve had too much to dream
Better keep your eyes shut, ‘cause you don’t wanna wake up ”
—Allie X, “Too Much to Dream”
“I wanted to stay like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Life wasn’t as complicated then. But I can’t help myself growing up. No one can. Life won’t stop and life won’t stand still. But I have a feeling if I just look backward once in awhile at Dorothy, if I am off beat in any way, I will get back on the sound track again … Dorothy and I thought a lot alike when I made The Wizard of Oz. I like to think we still do.”
—Judy Garland
(Recommended listening for this essay: “Too Much to Dream” by Allie X, “Sweet Beginnings” by Bebe Rexha, “Vienna” by Billy Joel, “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac, and “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” by Bebe Rexha)
Follow It's Not That Deep on Instagram — @areyouthereanxiety — and listen to my playlist of mental health songs on Spotify and Apple Music
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