When you work with kids at the age of 19, you get the sense of being old. There's a responsibility that comes with it. How this will impact them, how you can help, what you can teach. They run and tumble and you think, that would take me out. But they're young, and spry, and it reminds you of summers spent outside with the tall grass.
When you work with elderly at the age of 27, you get that sense of time passing. Of course it always passes, always will. It can be fragile too, there's fragility in this line of work everyday. You take in all you can learn, and it's a lot. You realize how young and spry you are, even while getting back aches that never came at 19. All the lessons you don't know yet, the life experiences and habits, (some you’d like to not replicate.) All that was on your shoulders of making sure these youths turn out all right, well that's all gone isn't it? Your subjects are far past you, and they've done fine as it is.
It makes you look around, though. What this snapshot looks like, from 12 or 72.
The roller rink kids would've thought my own place was cool. Loved that I play dnd, and maybe thought the plays I do are embarrassing. The 70 year olds however love my community plays, enjoy hearing about my board game nights, and find it fascinating that I have several roommates. At 12, I would've just been happy that I have cats and a backyard.
What would I tell myself. 10 years ago when I was 17 and alive and lonely and confused and watching dead poets society for the first time. What would I tell them.
You'll work at a roller rink and as a caregiver, but in-between you'll do retail and janitorial and get laid off (the contract didn't go through). You'll try out meds for the first time. In one year, you'll make the best friends you've ever had, and less than 2 years later you'll speak to half of them. You've handled a lot up to this point believe me I know. It's not over yet. There will be more, and worse, and you will find new songs to cry to. I wish I could hold you. In a few years, you'll meet people that do.
There will be a couple guys who cause you great heartache (and I use guy loosely). All different, all broken up in time. The lover, the asshole, the painter, the second half. You feel the stings each time in a way you've never felt before. Bees and lashes and knives. It doesn't really get easier to say goodbye.
I don't mean to scare you. I like warnings but: I know more than anything you are scared. So I’ll tell you this: you move out in 8 years with friends, and you curate a different environment than you grew up in.
I'll tell you this: in one year you meet the light of your life and in 3 you kiss for the first time.
I'll tell you this: in 2 years you join group therapy, then move on to single, then drop it (you're at a good spot and insurance is tough) but 3 years after that you call that same therapist to guide you through top surgery. It takes 2 more, but I'm speaking to you with the balcony gone.
You're struggling with your identity. I know, you switch around your pronouns before you settle on they/them (it was actually the love of your life's idea).
I'll tell you this: in 4 years when you're a janitor, you'll join community theatre. It's fun, and you meet amazing people during it. You still get nervous opening nights, and that's okay.
Everything that you're worried or embarrassed about: no one cares. Highschool doesn't stay with you, and embarrassment only happens if you let it. Forget dancing like no one's watching, you could go into a full Shakespeare monologue dressed like Chappelle roan (9 more years) on the sidewalk and no one minds. And if they do, it doesn't matter.
You'll circle back to dr seuss and Robert frost and maya Angelou and Mary Elizabeth frye and national treasure and josh groban and you'll find plenty of new art as well. In a few years time, you won't even remember the last time you self harmed.
You continue to love with all your heart. And it reflects back, echos and bounces and expands and you still get overwhelmed with it.
I'll tell you this: in 8 years when you move, you start feeding a stray cat that lives on your porch. And right now (10 years) she is sleeping beside me on the warm couch, purring.
I know you, and I know that alone would be all you need to know to keep going. If only for one stray cat, the choice is easy.
But you know me, and in honesty or nothing: Mr. Mustache is a grain of sand on a beach, a star in the universe. Infinitely important, irreplaceable, and one of hundreds, thousands, millions. In 10 years you seed native plants, play instruments, make dinners, run d&d, roller skate, act on stage (with lines!), read books to your friends, go camping, love fully, kiss your partner of 8 years, play word searches, get hit with the cat distribution system often.
And you still read inskinned.
I'll tell you this: my intention is not “hold on for the good hits” or “anything you can spin makes it worth it”. Life is beautiful, and it did get easier. You don't have as many doubts or pains. Yeah shit still sucks every now and again. There's gotta be showers in April. Majors and minors alike though, you aren't in a battle every goddamn day. You don't have to fight, you can breathe, and you love it. There's no proper way for me to explain it, next year or 5 or 10. Not in a way that encapsules every second of what I mean.
Obviously, you, the detective, knows what this means.
You'll just have to live to see it. Cheesy and straight out of a movie I know, (Shawshank, Tombstone), but that's the best part, my friend. We will.
Inspired by @inkskinned of course
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