Today, I am just over 20.5 years old. I like music festivals, studying race/gender/sexuality, rough sex, whiskey, and art museums. I like being in the ocean and on the ocean and around the ocean. I like drinking 40s in Dolores Park and I think I might want to live in Oakland after college. I work a lot and I party a lot and I study a lot.
I love a lot of people. I have some incredibly beautiful men and women in my life. I love them for silly reasons and serious reasons and sillyserious reasons. I am stupid in love with my girlfriend. I love the way she talks when she wakes up in the middle of the night and how intently she listens during lectures and that she makes dinosaur noises whenever an excuse presents itself.
I love loud music. I love dancing like an idiot. I love watching the sunrise. I love dressing well and I love smoking good weed.
I love working with tiny human beings. I love the way 5 year olds latch on to words that they’ve just learned and how middle schoolers try to be cool like a Phoenix song. I love that they aren’t jaded and I love that they learn a thousand things a minute.
I’m 20.5 and my right knee hurts when it rains because of a fall I took last year. I have asthma and friends who think they’re getting too old to go to music festivals at 24.5. I have debt and rent troubles and I work 30 hours a week to put myself through college. In a year, I’m going to be out in the world, wondering what the fuck is next. Lorde drives it home: “It feels so scary getting old”.
I’m 20.5 and I’ve seen a lot of the country. I’ve seen beautiful things and beautiful people.
I don’t want my right knee to hurt every day. I don’t want to work 40 hours a week for the rest of my life. I don’t want to get too old for music festivals or 40s or rough sex.
If this is what it means to live, then I want to live forever. Clementine von Radics wrote “Someday I will stop being young and wanting stupid tattoos”. I hope she’s wrong.
Today, I am just over 25 years old. I like seeing live music at small venues, studying how I can be a lawyer that takes race/gender/sexuality into account, rough sex, slow mornings, and art museums. I miss the ocean every day, but I live near a rather grand lake. I absolutely love being in it, on it, and around it. I don’t drink 40s in Dolores Park anymore. I became sober earlier this year, and these days I don’t get to spend much time in parks. I did not move to Oakland. Instead, I live in Chicago. I am head over heels in love with my neighborhood. I love the diversity of people, I love living around so many queers, and I love living inner city. I love being able to afford every part of my life here.
I love even more people now. I am surrounded by beautiful men, women, and other people. I love them for complicated reasons, and I love them because it feels right, and I love them for reasons I do not always understand. I am stupid in love with my girlfriend, although she is not the woman I previously referenced. I am no longer in love with the woman I loved at 20.5. I haven’t spoken to her in close to 3 years. I still care for her immensely, despite widening time and space. She is lost to me, but I know she is out there somewhere, making others smile. Most of the time, that is enough. I do not feel a lack of love, romantic or otherwise. I am in the healthiest and most stable relationship of my life. It is not always easy, but it is always good. She is kind, and silly, and so damn smart. I love the way she dances anytime the chance presents itself and the look on her face when she is in nature and how right her hand feels in mine.
I still love loud music, although it overwhelms me sometimes. I still love dancing like an idiot. I have not watched a sunrise in years, and do not particularly care to. I still love dressing well, and am particularly taken by the custom-made suit I bought myself. I still love smoking good weed, although it is sparse here.
I do not get to work with tiny humans anymore. I love making new friends with little ones, though. I get to do that sometimes.
I’m 25 and my right knee hurts when it rains or when I work out because of a car accident I got in a few years ago, compounded by the injury I sustained at 20.5. I have chronic asthma treated by 2 medications. I think I am too old for music festivals. I have a boat load of student debt, my rent has never been cheaper, and I cannot work anymore due to the rules at my law school. I miss working rather than just studying. In two years, I am going to be out in the world, wondering what the fuck is next. It’s hard to be afraid of getting old when you feel so much older than you are.
I’m 25.5 and I’ve seen even more of the county. I’ve seen beautiful things and beautiful people.
So far, my right knee does not hurt every day. I work much, much more than 40 hours a week, and my life promises to only get more busy. I am too old for music festivals and too prone to addiction for 40s, but I am not too old for rough sex. I do not fault any of it.
If this is what it means to live, then I will be decidedly content with my 75 or so years on earth. Clementine von Radics wrote “Someday I will stop being young and wanting stupid tattoos”. So far, she’s been wrong.
