actually i will write a poem about it, because i used to genuinely believe i wouldn't live to be 30. i said it isn't right for me. i said i just sense it: it was an inevitability. what i wasn't saying was the other thing: that i knew it would be by my hand, my actions. by my own deed.
and what would i tell myself, really, honestly, at 22. back in 2016. it's been ten years - a decade - and they've slipped by both so slowly and impossibly quickly. a third of my life in a blink.
there are so many bad things. it's hard not to start with that. i've always been a "bad news first" person anyway, and there's so many tragedies coming. personal and political. for a long time it felt like i had a stretch of bad luck, and the bad luck just wouldn't stop coming.
in 2016 it was still about a year before someone would spike my drink, and a bad thing would happen to me. in another six months i'll break up with my public embarrassment of a boyfriend. the world never really heals from this year, but i don't know that it was really ever whole in the first place.
what could i tell you about your life, though. there are funerals coming that you cannot still figure the shape of. you lose all of your grandparents, you lose other family members, the cancer is diagnosed in your cousin. for about two months you'll be fully blind, half blind for six months. you go through three cars, although only actually crash one of them (the other two were old, there was nothing you could do but turn them in, crying about it). you're actually still looking for a new car after that incident, honestly, currently driving a stick shift subaru.
and that's the thing: you drive now, you're no longer terrified of it. you love trains again, the panic attacks have subsided. the world is certifiably on fire, that is immediately true: and... I'm proud of you for surviving to 32.
you will rekindle friendships that you thought you'd lost due to distance; you literally live down the street from jason and the two of you spend many saturdays talking and laughing. you haven't started your weekly dnd sessions yet, that's another three years down the road. you meet terrible people, sure, and you get your heart shattered (and then something even worse), but: you also meet people that are destined to be on road trips with you, howling at the moon. you meet nick and amity house and all of them. you discover you're actually not a terrible cook once you venture away from making plain pasta, you fall in love with baking and with painting and with crafts you've never even heard of. you meet alison's daughter, who is perfect and just like her mom, you'll love her. in four years you meet your dog, he is going to save your life. you meet your nephew, and you're now close with your family. you see concerts you never thought you could afford, read books and watch movies that you didn't think you'd be alive for. you've now gone abroad, conquered your fear of planes multiple times, have been to cities you used to only recognize by name. you come out first as bisexual and then as a nonbinary lesbian (which fits more accurately), and your mom is so okay with it that she consistently tries to set you up with people from her office. remember thinking you could never escape, never really find home? you discover you can make it. you are now in a suburb of boston, still writing (of course).
oh and you have a book out, you're a proper "author" now, your childhood dream come true. you're working on your second one already, actually, and a close friend is coming over tonight for a "wine wednesday writing session" (yes you still do those, they're still lovely), but you won't meet that friend for another eight years and six months. you have met the person you are currently roommates with, and your house together is fucking amazing. plants cover every fucking inch. the two of you have only one house rule: do whatever you want, forever.
you are so fucking lucky these days it is glittering. holy shit. bookstores and beach trips and so many people that you love and that love you back that you are endlessly, furiously happy about it. you are rabidly, obnoxiously happy, the kind of happy you used to think was faked; the kind of happy that pours out of you. you have dinner parties and friends over every weekend and music out of your speakers. you once wrote a short little paragraph about hoping you'd still find the beauty in things, and i have great news: you are still in love, if not moreso, with everything. little flowers and children in snowsuits and bunnies running and sunrises and the curl of oatmilk in your coffee (oh. oat milk is gonna be a thing).
this is the year that you start taking therapy seriously, thank you for that. and yes, we're still in therapy (like i said, a lot of bad things have been happening), but we are so much better. something you find impossible: we finally stopped self-harming. we get tattoos over the worst scars in five years pretty much on the dot. we have such a fucking good relationship to our body; we finally have an excellent relationship to food and to eating. we still dance, we still make art, we are still singing. we laugh so much more now, though. we are so much more confident, a version of ourselves we never thought possible: funny, and fun-loving, and healthy. healing.
you have a long road to walk. i think you'd have asked me: is it worth it? all the scars, the indignity of trauma.
and i'm telling you: even one moment of it is worth it, my love. even one drop of the future that's waiting for you. and while i wish none of the bad shit happened: holy shit, i cannot wait for all of the good that you live through. every single sunbeam was worth it. every walk with your dog. every quiet morning. every time you watched the soft purr of the grey and lifting fog.
it is worth it, and i'm so glad you're here now. it was worth it all. i know you feel aging is one long and terrible fall. i am telling you i am waiting for you there, at the end of the tunnel. i am waiting in the light and the growing spring.
you should stay for another decade. the birds are coming back. i can't wait for you to hear them sing.
andulkaphoto
theartofmadeline
titsay
jbbartram-illu
