on growing up, being just-about-twenty, and fear

I turn twenty in less than a month, which isn't very old to a lot of people, but it will be the oldest that I have ever been. I think it's fair to be a little bit freaked out about it.

Turning 2. The next year, I cried on my birthday because I was going to miss being 2.

In my head, I am still solidly 12 – I still run to my mom the instant I have a problem of any size, dirty dishes form stacks in my sink and on the counter, and I'm (apparently) still incapable of putting shoes into a closet. The laundry piles up until my prom dress is the only thing left in my closet and I've run out of underwear and my mom says, "It sure has been a while since you've come over to wash your clothes..."

Turning 13, with some really great hair.

And then, as I was writing that list of ways that I am in-no-way-even-close to being twenty, I realized how many things have changed since I was younger. I have a vase for flowers (that I often leave on my table until they're shriveled and brown, but still). I have nice dresses that I picked out and paid for all by myself. I have my own apartment to keep clean and my own art to hang on the walls, though it always takes at least three nail holes in the drywall before the frame is centered and straight. I'm responsible for feeding myself and making sure I wake up on time, which doesn't always happen because sometimes 8 AM (or even 11 AM) feels way too early to put on clothes and act civil. I choose whether or not to do my work and whether or not to drive to class, which grad schools to visit and to which ones I should apply, if I want to change my major... Oh goodness, I am in charge of a lot of things!

All of that is very scary to me. My brain has not yet caught on to the fact that it's all on me, because when I look in the mirror, I see the least mature version of myself – that part of me is alive and well, more so than I'd like to admit. But when I start to realize the sheer weight of this responsibility I now have for myself and the direction of my life, I get this panicked feeling of, "Oh my gosh, people think that I'm ready to handle this and they have absolutely NO IDEA how wrong they are," when, really, I am already handling it and doing just fine.

My 17th birthday, hanging out in the children's section of Harrods with Thomas the Train. See what I mean about not feeling like an adult?

The floor always goes un-vacuumed until ten minutes before a friend comes over, and sometimes I run out of trash bags and use to-go boxes to hold my dirty paper towels. All of the pretty throw pillows that belong on the sofa are scattered on the floor and the rug is crooked, as are the table and the chairs. But I'm doing it, this big scary adult thing, and I have my suspicions that everyone still thinks it's kind of scary, even after they've been doing it for a long time.

I'm going to take a few really deep breaths in the next few weeks, maybe avoid the panic attack that always comes around midnight on July 22nd, and try to realize that the number attached to me doesn't change the fact that everything is going as it should.

a cute little list

I've just recently started reading BleuBirdBlog (what a precious little family, and they live in Nashville! Just a hop skip and jump away from here), and one of James' recent posts included this precious little list of things she's looking forward to this summer. I am stealing from her, egregiously.

I'm looking forward to:

Eating / A little bit healthier, day by day

Drinking / Sweet tea and lemon water with mint (sigh)

Practicing / Stretches, so maybe I can finally accomplish my silly dream to do the splits

Mastering / The art of being kinder to myself and to my family

Learning / To ride a bike

Trying / To water my succulent just enough, so its leaves stop turning yellow & shriveling away

Playing / With my hair, as I've got to get over this shove-it-in-a-bun phase

Finishing / Going through old boxes from the last time we moved (when I was a 4th grader...)

Reading / More, and everything (at the moment, Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld)

Remembering / To exercise every other day, even though I kind of remember now, I just don't

Wearing / Dresses and sandals, all day long

Cooking / Grilled chicken and veggies (on a panini press... not that fancy around here)

Working / On my summer courses

Traveling / To North Carolina, to Canada (maybe?), to Nashville, to Atlanta

Wanting / To be a little bit happier, walk a little bit lighter

beginagain

I was out to dinner with a couple of lovely families on Sunday, and one of the women said that I ought to write a blog, that she would be interested in hearing my voice and thought others might be as well.

So, that is to say, maybe I'll be writing here a bit more often. Anything to play with my camera over the summer, I suppose.

baisers

An old friend of mine once made an offhand comment – it might have even been a tweet or a Facebook post, I can't remember – which spoke of a generalization among the last three people she'd kissed. Which was strange to me, because in the context of the comment, they had happened recently.

The last three people who I've kissed are... the three people I've kissed in my teen/adult life.

Now, different strokes for different folks, and I'm obviously not saying anything bad about this unnamed friend. Kiss all of the people. It was just weird for me to realize that her life was so different than mine in that way. That she was on the list of the last three people I'd kissed, and I assuredly was not in hers. 

realizations

The kindest boy in the world, I contend. My best friend.

 I pride myself on being giving and kind and empathetic, and yet when I look at our relationship I was greedy and selfish and all of the words you do not want to hear in reference to yourself. They are the words you want to yell in a fight, not think about yourself in quiet contemplation. But, here we are.

 I forced him to go to IKEA once and then got angry when he wanted to leave – not the sign of a good girlfriend, or even a good friend, in case you were wondering. I still remember, so vividly, him lying on his bed, eyes closed, and meekly saying something along the lines of, "Are you actually mad at me for being overwhelmed?"

What a punch to the gut, even months later. Ouch, ouch, ouch.

I was deeply in love with him from the beginning of our relationship, but promised that I wasn't. I agreed to a relationship with terms I was uncomfortable with – there was a timer and I promised that I wouldn't fall in love. I cried every night for a month before he left for school and never told him. We kept getting together for months, intermittently, after our official "thing" had come to an end, which broke me for weeks afterwards every single time, but I kept letting it happen, and he kept thinking I was ok. There was a basic lack of communication on my part that led to me being upset constantly and him being clueless, which was so immature and unfair of me that I cannot even stand to think of it.

This is my repentance, I guess, until I can say all of this to him. I am scared to say it because I am afraid he will have more shitty things to add to the pile. That he will say, "Yeah, and also..." which I am not sure I can handle right now. But, I have been thinking about it so much I had to just write it down and get it out and edit it so that it sounded coherent.

I am so sorry for treating you poorly. I loved you so much, but I was an idiot. You deserved better.

I hope one day we'll have a second chance.

what i know now

(that I didn't know five days ago)

1. stir fry is very easy to cook and a wok is wholly unnecessary

2. sometimes, caring for yourself is difficult and you have to do things that you don't want to like block your favorite person from your Facebook feed and that is ok, pinky swear, because you need to do what it takes to feel better

3. making a loud whining noise when attempting a sit-up is NOT embarrassing and will only serve to make the neighbors think you're having weird sex, which is better than them knowing that you've not accomplished a sit-up since 2003

4. your abs and other muscles you've forgotten exist because you've not worked out since May remember that neglect and plan to make you pay for it, which is why you cannot stand up from your bed (or roll over... or carry a laundry basket... or bend in any direction...) without one of the aforementioned whining sounds*

5. even if you did not think you were straining your neck, you were probably straining your neck

6. that book moment where the weary protagonist "stepped into a hot shower and felt all of the muscles in her back slowly relax under the spray" is bullshit and you probably need to get a massage

*ouch... :(

rough time

I'm having a kind of hard time with my feelings tonight. I've been OK all day, all week in fact, but tonight has just been... awful. And I decided to write about it here before it gets more awful.

I just want to curl up into a ball, really. Do you ever have those moments? Where the outside world gets so insanely overwhelming, and you're missing people so much that you can feel it in your bones, and the thought of moving or speaking to people or forcing a smile onto your face seems pointless and painful, and there's absolutely nothing that you can think of doing that could make anything better at all?

I know that I'm very privileged to be able to feel this way, instead of worrying about my next meal or my rent or things like that. I also know that the fact that people are worse off than I am doesn't mean that I am disallowed the privilege to feel shitty sometimes.

But, I think it's a human thing, as well. Sometimes, everything just feels like a burden that you're too beaten down to bear. Even if you're doing perfectly fine one minute, the next day might start off on the wrong foot. Note: There aren't many feelings as bad as waking up and feeling OK, and then moments later remembering something heartbreaking that just happened. That was how tonight felt for me. I had a good day, and then it suddenly plummeted.

And I know I'm doing well. I know that to be true. But I don't feel like I'm doing well. I feel completely dependent, like the only thing that will make me feel better is the hug of someone who isn't mine anymore. I feel very lonely and isolated and like I really ought to have folded my laundry.

Ugh. Let's hope for a better tomorrow.

The picture is from the New York Botanical Gardens and is unrelated, but I like pictures with posts.