I really didn't think.
I didn't think I'd come anywhere near turning 18. Sorry to be angsty, but I don't even mean to sound like a teenage dirtbag when I say I truly didn't think it'd happen. I used to have gravel in my voice whenever I'd speak about myself or to others. The abuse I've endured until getting some sort of bittersweet happiness I was "owed" later in my teenage years never weighed out any bit of the sickening and horrid things I've been through. Call it selfish. Call it whatever. But I thought I'd be over with it all well before 16. And it's sort of sick to combine the whole teenage girl experience into this disgusting plethora of doing things well beyond your years, hating the world and those in it so bitterly. Being bitter isn't teen, it isn't angsty, nor cute, it shouldn't be a collective experience to have a toxic and manipulative boyfriend, or friends that would leave you stranded and intoxicated off your ass in a town you don't know the name of. It's so sick to normalize all of this into a ditzy kind of girl-world thing. There's so much more I could list and speak about for hours. There's so much wickedness I've endured well behind the near two decades I've lived. I've smoked more cigarettes on an empty stomach with some coffee than a stereotypical Parisian. Yet for some reason, it doesn't hurt to be here as much as I thought it would. It isn't threatening nor painful to know I am about to be 18. I will be 18. I've learned, yes, and I continue to be swell. I am grateful to be here, I am delighted with who I've become, I accept the ugliness of my past. This is the only time I plan to reflect on it. 9 whole minutes until I am 18. Call birthdays "no big deal". It's a restart.
A restart from all the smeared and sloppy memories that plague a 17 year old girl who's seen too much, been places too much, felt all too much. I know it'll go well. I know my life is in good hands. I just want to shake off these thoughts before I'm essentially new. Reset. I am happy to be 18, yet will I forgive the things before hitting this milestone? Heavens no.









