Trying to Figure Out What Life's About and Where You Belong - Before Turning 30!

In her hilarious memoir, Just Don't Call Me Ma'am, Anna Mitchael writes about living a life filled with ups and down, love and heartbreak - and her first Brazilian bikini wax!

Like so many bright-eyed college graduates before her, Anna Mitchael begins her twenties armed with the conviction that the world is hers for the taking. And she discovers that it is, mostly—only no one told her just how often she’d have to pick herself up off the floor along the way.

Written for every woman who’s experienced the ups and downs of trying to figure out who you’re really meant to be, Just Don’t Call Me Ma’am is a story of one woman and the choices that add up to be her twentysomething life—and of how sometimes you have to remember where you came from before you can figure out where you’re going.

CommitmentNow.com:  What inspired you to write Just Don’t Call Me Ma’am:  How I Ditched The South, Forgot My Manners, And Managed To Survive My Twenties With (Most Of) My Dignity Still Intact?

Anna Mitchael:  I was in the second half of my twenties, looking around and wondering how I’d ended up with the life I was living. There were all these ‘expectations’ or ‘road markers’ that in the back of my mind, I’d assumed I’d always reach. But those pieces hadn’t come together for me—I hadn’t met someone I wanted to commit to for life, motherhood wasn’t anywhere in the foreseeable future, and even though I’d spent a lot of years working, my job wasn’t bringing me the satisfaction I’d thought was part of the deal. Yet even in the face of all these question marks, I knew I’d been making the decisions that were right for me, so it wasn’t like I regretted anything….. I looked around at my close friends and they were all coming to terms with the same gaps peppered throughout their own lives. I decided that the best way for me to get through was to write it all down and see if I could find some kind of clear answer or order to things—I hoped it would become a book from the beginning, but it was a while before I could definitely see the different chapters falling into place.

CommitmentNow.com:  Your description of getting a Brazilian bikini wax is hysterical!  Can you explain how that experience helped you get over a bad break up?

Anna:  For me it was a Brazilian bikini wax, for other women it’s just getting out there and going on some dates again. I have one friend who takes up a new craft project when relationships end. Whatever it takes for you to get out there and be in the world and have the feeling that you’re coming from a powerful place—I think that’s the key to getting through the low points of a break-up.

CommitmentNow.com:  While in Las Vegas with your parents to celebrate your 29th birthday, you reflect that you’ve been a “lazy river kind of girl,” meaning one who goes with the flow and doesn’t make waves.  Is that still the case?

Anna:  I’ve worked really hard to figure out the right balance between standing up for what I think and what I want, and also respecting the needs and wants of the people I love. It’s a constant work in progress. But the older I get the more I learn what is worth going for—or ‘making waves’ about— and what’s best to just walk away from. There’s still a lot to learn, that much I know for sure.

CommitmentNow.com:  Your grandmother, with whom you are very close, had a wish for you:  that you “do things that you want to do.”  Have you found it difficult to fulfill that wish?

Anna:  You guys aren’t going to give me any ‘what’s your favorite toppings on a burger?’ questions, are you? I’m kidding. Some introspection is good….I’ll just be sure to balance it out by reading a bunch of gossip magazines tonight.

In answer to your question, yes, I have found it difficult to fulfill that wish. I have found it extremely difficult through out my life to weed through what the general consensus is regarding things that are cool and lifestyle choices that people ‘should’ make. I think I have lived a good many years with a perpetual feel like I was missing out on something. You know, that mythical awesome party that’s likely happening at the bar on the one night you promise yourself you’ll stay home to watch TV and relax? It takes a real concerted effort for me to sit down and separate the cultural noise of coulda, woulda, shoulda from the decisions I make. I’m learning to come to terms with the fact that it’s just how my brain is wired—and that I’ll probably have to continue vigilance to that end throughout my life.

CommitmentNow.com:  After the breakup with your boyfriend “The Yankee,” you discover that you’ve been “swallowing [your] words” for years.  What did you mean by that?

Anna:  The hardest thing about that breakup was seeing that he was absolutely right to end it, and that if I hadn’t been such a coward I would have done the same thing much earlier in the relationship.

I’d been looking away from my gut feelings on the subject for a long time, the day-to-day manifestation of that was ‘swallowing my words’. When he left I was in a totally vulnerable and helpless position—but it truly was no one’s fault but my own. It would have been so much easier if I could have pointed a finger at him….it sucks, doesn’t it? Whether you’re talking about a life-altering breakup or running out of gas or not having your favorite jeans clean to wear on a certain occasion, it just totally sucks when there’s no one to blame but ourselves.

CommitmentNow.com:  You were raised in and around Texas, and in a burst of post-college independence, moved to Boston on your own, then Seattle, New York, Colorado, and back to Texas.  What drew you back home?

Anna:  I thought the perfect place would make my life perfect. But then I realized, there is no perfect place—it’s just choosing the set of variables you want to work with. I realized that having my family close by was a variable I wasn’t willing to sacrifice for the long haul. I also really just had a strange pull to go home, I can’t explain it other than to say that all of a sudden—there was nowhere else I wanted to be. And that was a feeling I had never experienced in my life to that point.

CommitmentNow.com:  Throughout Just Don’t Call Me Ma’am, there is a sense of anxiety about your upcoming 30th birthday, which has now come and gone.  Why was that event such a milestone and what have you learned since?

Anna:  I remember my mother being thirty(ish) and so in my mind, I think I always had that birthday as this no-turning-back point of adult-land. Obviously it was an incorrect assumption, but for some reason those are hardest for me to let go of sometimes.  Birthdays and years are what we make them. I know sixty year olds who are a hell of a lot more fun to sit around with and talk to and drink wine with than some women younger than I am. It’s about 'how' you’re living, not 'how long'.

CommitmentNow.com:  What advice do you have for other women who are approaching the big 3-0 with apprehension?

Anna:  Sometimes it works for me to have something to stress about because it’s like this tangible thing that I can focus my angst on. It helps me push through projects and gives me a reason to make changes in my life. If you’re the kind of person who needs that impetus, I’d say go ahead and get as apprehensive as you want—because the birthday is going to come and then it’s going to go and perhaps surviving it will be empowering.

If you aren’t that kind of person who needs to create angst then I’d drop the apprehension and just plan a big-ass party with lots of tequila and limes and maybe even a mariachi band. Why not blow it all out? The twentysomething years are fun but they sure as hell aren’t easy, you deserve a celebration for surviving. 

Anna Mitchael is the author of your soon-to-be favorite book Just Don’t Call Me Ma’am, a memoir that details her twenties spent living and working in cities across the nation. A reformed nomad, Anna has returned home to Texas. She will tolerate y’all but reserves the right to raise hell when anyone calls her ma’am. You can read the daily chronicles of her life (with a side of extra-spicy jalapenos, please) at www.annamitchael.com/happinessproject.

To purchase Just Don't Call me Ma'am, click here.