32 Flavors (And Then Some)… (2-2) – Commentary

Commentary (The Receipt)

If you’re here, you’ve probably already read 32 Flavors (And Then Some)… and felt that weird double thing of:

“This is definitely him,”

and

“This could’ve been me.”

That’s the point.

This one is meant to be breezy on the surface — almost like you’re flipping through Polaroids instead of reading a confession. But there’s a lot of structure hiding under it.

What this piece actually is

Every line in this thing is a single flavor of early life.

Not a full story.

Not a trauma dump.

Just one clean, contained moment:

  • a hallway feeling
  • a classroom belief
  • a mirror thought
  • a crush logic
  • a “this is what the world is” assumption

Stacked together, they make a kind of emotional yearbook of that “not-a-kid-anymore, not-a-grownup-yet” space.

It is about me. These are all versions of things I’ve thought, done, or felt.

But it’s also deliberately written wide enough that someone else can pick it up and go:

“Yeah, that was me too… and that one… and that one… okay, rude.”

I co-sign every line as mine.

I also wrote them so they could be yours.

Older-me / younger-me

Part of why this one feels lighter than some other pieces is because it’s not about a specific wound.

It’s about the moment before the wounds really land.

Younger-me in this is:

  • sure school is the entire known universe
  • sure homework will matter in some future that be can’t picture
  • sure every message or call is proof of being remembered or forgotten
  • sure “the real world” is a door you walk through, not the mess you’re already in

Older-me — the voice you’re actually reading — is sitting beside all of that going:

“Oh, you have no idea what’s coming…

but you’re not wrong for thinking any of this.”

It’s not “look how stupid I was.”

I hate that tone.

It’s more:

“Look how earnestly I was trying to make sense of everything with half the puzzle pieces.”

So yeah, there’s an age split baked in:

  • If you’re younger, this can feel like someone a bit further down the road reaching back and saying:
  • “You’re not broken. You’re just early in the pattern.”
  • If you’re older, it can feel like looking through a drawer you forgot you even kept, and realizing:
  • “Wow, I really did think that one intense moment was going to define my whole life.”

The “32 flavors” trick

This piece is built on a little math game:

  • There are 32 single-sentence lines that all start from that early-life POV.
  • The 33rd is just: “me.”

That’s not an accident.

The whole structure is:

32 flavors of who I thought I was

and then

the last word is who I actually have to live as.

The idea is:

  • you try on all these identities, crushes, opinions, rebellions, aesthetics
  • you taste them, rinse them out, swallow some pieces
  • and then, at the end of the day, you still have to land somewhere when you talk about yourself

The last line is me saying:

“All of that is real.

But at some point I still have to answer when life calls my name.”

And if you want to get cute with it: you could literally rewrite all 32 lines with your versions — and keep the “me” at the end — and it would still work.

Which leads us to the song.

What I hope this does for you

Best case, this piece gives you:

  • a softer way to look at who you were
  • a little more compassion for how you got here
  • language for that feeling of, “I really thought I was too aware to ever get lost — and yet, here we are.”

It’s not a warning.

It’s not a lecture.

It’s just a map of all the little assumptions that quietly shape a person before life really gets its hands on them.

If it makes you want to list out your own 32 flavors and put your name at the end?

Perfect.

On the companion track: “32 Flavors” – Alana Davis?

The companion track here is “32 Flavors” by Alana Davis — which is itself a cover of Ani DiFranco’s original.

Ani’s version is raw, angular, more obviously her.

Alana changed some of the lyrics, smoothed it out, made it more radio-friendly, and slipped her own story into it. It ended up as an actual radio hit for her.

Same song skeleton.

Different voice, different flavor, different audience.

That’s exactly how I see this piece:

  • Ani = the original “this is my inner landscape” core
  • Alana = “I’ll keep the structure, but make the language fit my mouth and my moment”

I’m doing a similar thing:

  • taking that idea — humans have dozens of flavors in them —
  • building a tight container (32 sentences + one “me”)
  • and then filling it with my own specifics

And just like Alana did with Ani’s song, you could absolutely take this entire piece and rewrite every line to be about you:

  • same rhythm
  • same frame
  • different details

That’s part of why I like pairing it with this track: the song itself is a proof-of-concept that you can take someone’s template and make it entirely your own without losing the soul of it.

That’s you doing exactly what Alana did with Ani: taking the structure and telling your own truth with it.

Cycle II – Coming of Age · 02 · Commentary (v1.00)

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