Tough Titties (Belgray’s Book)

I made a ton of big life changes before I turned 40. Some came slow, some came fast, but they all came with a theme – how are other people figuring this stuff out, and why am I so… slow? At everything? 

I don’t remember exactly how or when I found Laura Belgray, but even if I have a love-hate relationship with her course emails when they’re blowing up my inbox, god I’m happy I found her. 

She can write. Bukowski brutality in her honesty, Pema in her metaphors and perspectives, but through the lens of a 90s VJ in her cultural references (and hey, she wrote some of that copy too, so it’s more about me discovering THEY sounded like HER which kind of blew my mind). 

Tough Titties is her book. 

For anyone who has ever felt perpetually behind, like you sort of know your path but aren’t quite sure how to make it work, or like if stepping on landmines was a life skill you’d be celebrated but since it’s not you have to hide those numerous wounds – she’s talking to you (re: me. rere: probably us, since you’re here too). 

Especially if you’re an 80s or 90s kid. Shoutout to the VJ point above, because I found out I was appreciating her work on music video channels and Nick at Night before I even knew they were her words. Talk about a callback. 

From the book (and transcribed from the audiobook, so this is how I heard it, not how she wrote it),

I’ve always felt behind, like I’m scrambling to catch up and can’t do life the way you’re “supposed to.” The sings were there at my preschool interview, where – my  mother tells me – I sat on the floor saying, “Oh ship! Oh ship!” Baby’s first obscenity, while trying, literally, to jam a square peg into a round hole.

Then, a bit later…

My efforting was transparent. I was the picture of wanting and pushing. That’s the picture you put behind the other pictures, because trying too hard isn’t pretty. But then, most of us are trying too hard. Especially to look like we’re not trying at all. “Not trying” is a multibillion-dollar industry. We have warring best sellers about not giving a f***!”

She has to come to terms with who she is, and why she works on what she works on in the way she does.

I’m not lazy, but only if I’m obsessed. 

Boy do I relate to that. And the struggle to find work that doesn’t feel like work, because,

Few things stink on me like faked enthusiasm. Not even fear or garlic, or Eternity by Calvin Klein, which I wore for a week in 1989.

It’s not a fake it til you make it message. It’s a lot of feeling like a fraud even when you’re kinda sorta making it. It’s mostly about leveling up with yourself. How you come to terms with your inner fraud enough to dance with to early-90s anthems with it.

Most of all, Tough Titties is a stop being fake about your honest self, and have fun making something you’d want to rabidly consume book. We are all we’ve got. She’s leaning into it in a beautiful way.

Ya bad Belgray, ya bad.