God bless the girl who's got her own.

what did we even talk about?

hey, do you remember the quiet between us in all those restaurants? all the other couples engrossed in deep conversation and us, as quiet as a closed mouth.

that one afternoon when i asked ‘why do you love me?’ and you replied as quick as a toin coss ‘because you’re mad, because you’re crazy’ and i said ‘why else?’ and you said ‘that mouth, i love that mouth’ and i collapsed into myself like a sheet right out of the dryer.

you clean, beautiful, unremarkable boy, raised by a pleasant mother, was i just a riot you loved to watch up close? there were times i picked arguments just so that we could have something to talk about.

Changes

I realized I hadn’t written anything in a while so I figured I should update with a blog post (shout out to that one person who actually reads them lol). At first I thought I should write about how amazing studying abroad in Cape Town was and all the things I did and people I met, but not only am I too lazy to sit down and remember everything, I don’t think anyone cares enough to sit down and read through it. I don’t think I’d care enough to sit and read through it if it was someone else. But if you really want to know, Cape Town was 5 months of life being more amazing than it had ever been before (and most probably will ever be again). And then I came back to the states and it wasn’t anymore. It’s sad that the only place I can revisit my experiences in Cape Town is in my memories, but I guess all dreams have to end eventually. Real life is like that. You just have to deal with the changes.

Speaking of changes, my birthday recently passed (well it passed two months ago but whatever). Every year I like to look back and think about where I was exactly 365 days ago. What I was doing, what I was thinking, and how different my life has been since then. About a year ago I wrote this:

Why is it that no matter where I go and what I do, everything always stays the same. It’s like I’m stuck in an hourglass; the only thing that changes is time. So here I sit, another year older but still stuck in the same shitty place I’ve been in since I was 15. I miss being the age I was when I thought I’d have myself together by now.

It feels like a lifetime has gone by since I’ve written these words. I was asking for change, and I most definitely got it. In the past year I’ve lived on my own in a foreign country, made new friends, lost some old ones, jumped off a bridge, climbed a mountain, took surfing lessons, smoked, drank, discovered my limits, became more confident in myself and my sexuality, learned a little more about that thing called love, and maybe even experienced it. But most importantly I learned how to be free. Free of judgments, free of other people controlling what I say or do, free of caring what people think when I say or do it. I realized that if I want something to happen, then I can make it happen. I feel like before I was living in a little fishbowl in little town somewhere in Jersey. So many things mattered that, in the grand scheme of things, don’t matter at all. I let other people put limits on me, but even worse I put limits on myself. My vision was so narrow, I could only see my life in terms of people I knew or communities and networks I already had. I didn’t realize that there was a great big world of people and places and communities and lifestyles out there just waiting to be discovered. I didn’t realize that life doesn’t have a right way. It doesn’t have to be college-grad school-job-marriage. It can be any combination of things. Maybe I don’t want to go to grad school. Maybe I just want kids, and marriage isn’t for me. Maybe I’ll take a year off and figure things out. The important thing to remember is, in the end the straight and narrow is just that. Straight and narrow. When you tunnel your vision you miss out on the essence of life. We’re meant to live in curves, and the world has so many. Everything isn’t as scary as it seems.

It’s kind of weird to look back and think about how I used to be and compare it to how I am now. I remember being an awkward, unpopular, shy but slightly outgoing 8^th grader with a big mouth and even bigger insecurities. I used to be so worried about what everyone thought about me, all the time. But when I look at the teachers I hated, the people I knew, and my very own peers now (some in college, some with kids, some going through all that baby daddy/mama drama, some with dead end jobs, and some that I will never, ever see or hear from again), I realize how irrelevant and pointless their judgments and opinions really were. Back then, all I ever wanted was to be confident, independent, and free. Now that I’m a 21 year old rising senior who traveled the world and came back a little more cultured (and a lot less afraid), I can finally say that I am. If that little 8^th grader could see who she’d become (not that I’m done “becoming” yet), I can honestly say she’d be proud. And that she can’t wait for things to change again.

And in the end, that is what’s most important.

Thanks for reading.

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