My Next Piece
I feel weird about graduating. I have this resistance to change that reveals itself when I speak about college. “I go” is now “I went” changing my “I’ll walk over now” text to “how about next Wednesday?”. When I was in college we would sit on the floor because we felt like it, laughing, crying, singing, sharing even when we didn’t have the time. When I lived for the thrill of the, oh my god this paper is due in thirty-six minutes don’t even breathe close to me, feeling. Our freezer was packed so my chicken never needed to thaw, and we had too many blankets but “you never know who might stop by”. When I was living so presently, I forgot about the things I had planned, and I would eat dinner twice, sometimes three times just so I could hear the stories that reminded me just how young and alive we are.
The other day I realized I like being jet lagged because I can blame my dearth of following rules on the fact I am on someone else’s time. I am making plans for weekends four months from now and simultaneously grieving the time when I would beg for five more minutes at the playground due to my age and inability to pay attention to anything but where my feet were. Nothing was dull because I hadn’t seen the same movie twice and uber eats didn’t yet know what to recommend to me for dinner.
The new boy, correction: man, taking up space in my head must travel for work this week so I guess I have to dance alone for a while and wait to share stories over a reservation in due time. “Your joy for everything is very refreshing”, and I just want to cry and scream “Yours could be too!” Don’t you remember when we used to sob over skittles, and squirt too much ketchup on our plates. I miss those times when I grew fins in water, and kissing was so awkward we had no other choice but to laugh. It used to take me seven and a half minutes to floss with my braces and I would need to redo my mascara 4 times before I just gave up.
In Europe STD test results take an hour, the eggs don’t need to be refrigerated and Spanish stores close so their owners can take naps. If I were in France, I would never wear a bra. While in Italy men would beg me to drink wine and more and more I question if Boston is just a really great place to attend college. When I say blackberry, my father thinks of his old phone, while I sit in tears craving more flavor and obviously meaning the fruit. I want to get drunk off making love, not drunk off bottle service and tequila in a city that never sleeps. In my dreams I am too in love with what is in front of me to text, I forget to put on sunscreen, I don’t waste time shaving and when I wake it is because a beautiful man is kissing my back not because I have a meeting in ten minutes to talk about the next piece I am going to write.
