#hlfitzgerald

I wake up in the morning,

"How old were you, when you first fell in love?"

When we met, I told you I didn't believe in God.

I'm in my twenties and I sit and read self-help books until they're tattooed onto my eyes but not my brain somehow. I'm in my twenties and watch videos on the internet to feel validated in my trauma. I'm in my twenties and time is measured by the distance between psychiatry appointments, by the changed medication and appetite, by the patterns of sleep and whether or not the night terrors have ceased because even in my twenties, I apparently still have chronic bad dreams.. I'm in my twenties and my friends are few but everything. Each one a funnel of love. I'm in my twenties and I have been to a club only three times. Most Friday nights are my dogs in my bed with Friends on in the background. I'm in my twenties and I know my body will likely never look better than it does now and yet I criticize it; the folds of fat that sit beneath my breasts when I put a bra on, the cellulite I've watched grow on my outer thighs, how I now have two chins when I smile. On the other hand, my cheeks are rounder and my smile actually reaches my eyes now. I'm in my twenties with forty years' worth of baggage to unpack and muscles that ache from carrying it far longer than I have needed to. I'm in my twenties and want to be wild and free and make love to strangers in foreign lands but go numb when I feel a man's hands on me. I'm in my twenties and I wonder if I am meant to love a woman. I'm in my twenties and play mancala with my pill box on Sundays, dropping each one into the slots, like day of the week panties, and I'm taken back to the clear glass marbles and wooden board and my grandmother's contagious laugh all of whom have turned into antidepressants, an ugly green plastic pill box, and sitting alone on my bed, playing a game I did not sign up for, one that I do not want to play. I'm in my twenties and for the first time in my life, there is a future beyond twenty-seven. I don't want to belong to that club anymore. I'm not excited for the future, necessarily, but more--curious. That's a good first step, isn't it? Curiosity. Maybe, when I'm in my thirties, I'll be excited and not just curious. I'm in my twenties and I'm learning a lot about first steps. I'm learning how to admit I've got a problem, that my life is unmanageable, that I am powerless, which, to a control freak, is no good, awful, and very bad. But here I am, being okay with just the first step. Like I said, I'm in my twenties, and I am learning. And for that, I am grateful.