wish i knew this in my early twenties
would've made it all easier
I’m treading water with my hands. Going on twenty eight, alive as ever. I was a girl once, wide-eyed, big horizons. Now the years with my father are outnumbered by the years without him, and this formative decade has given me more insolent lessons than I ever needed. I’m using butter on things, unafraid, the French kind. I shrug my shoulders at the sight of my hips. I kind of like myself, actually – only on Fridays in a slip dress, but that still counts. I keep my promises, climb fire escapes of conflict, walk in a straight line, hold hands, let him see me cry, pull myself together for a meeting. My dreams are many, scattered and surreal like a hoarder’s closet, but closer to me than once seemed. I’ve stopped ignoring health concerns and feelings and pretending the two aren’t intertwined. I move my body and let my words speak for themselves.
Could I do this all over again? Maybe. I wouldn’t want to, but on the occasion of a shooting star, a dinner with the girl who walked me all the way here would be great. I’d sit her down, pour her champagne to celebrate triumph and survival, hold her hand as I relay it quietly, all cards on the table, with my voice firm and my intentions truthful. What would she like to know? Let’s take it step by step.
You’ll have difficult nights and difficult mornings. The distinction between the two is important, compounding over time. The solution to a difficult night is a kind meal, a stable friend, and a hot shower. The solution to a difficult morning is turning your life upside down.
There’s always the next big thing. It’s predefined and shaped by the previous big thing. You wanted to wash off the last thing, to scrub it off, to start over, clean-slated in pristine condition, but it’s still there. Your skin is soapy and irritated. Maybe that’s fine.
Your legs aren’t the problem. Your nose isn’t the problem. Your parents aren’t the problem. The only problem is you’re not letting others get to the bottom of you.
Love does not shield you from the future nor the past, and especially not yourself, and so it doesn’t have the faculty to save you. It’s still essential for survival – the good kind, of course. What’s good love? An expanded horizon of capability. You may be drowning, but your beloved is there to catch you. The bad kind is when they’ve been putting pebbles in your pockets so that you sink faster. Watch your pockets. Take swimming lessons.
You can’t be what you’ve always longed to be until you pay respect to what you already are.