I have forgiven myself for trying to title this "on being 19" and to all the other pretentious writerly folks who suck at giving things titles, just pretend you are faced with a crowd of twitter-savy twenty somethings, and your goal is to get them to look up from their iphone 6s.
In order to completely live out the last bit of teenager-hood my parents shared stories of voicemails I left them when I was a small chubby girl. One included the time my mom and sister begrudgingly took me along to richmond on the train, and I left a slow annunciated message for my dad, whose cell phone still holds the message the way I hold sayings in my head and forgo sharing them aloud for in fact a teacher scared me two years ago and warned that I should not say everything on my mind.
Besides that, my mother's work phone used to be my diary, I would proudly type the wrong ten-letter combination until screaming to my sister to help me--nowadays I scream to my sister about men in butt-accentuating khaki's--and I would call my mom about bugs I was too afraid to kill, what it looked like in my room, stuffed mouth contemplations about when she would come home, and famously the snowy day phone message when I humbly asked for my mom to bring me some fabric please. I laughed--almost spitting out my nostalgic cookie cake--because I was not good with my hand-eye-coordination, and my sister was probably sewing a coin-purse or something and my answer to being left out was to ask for my own project.
19 years in--mostly, save the road trips to a small town beginning with the letter m, and logan, west Virginia--the same place is actually stomach churning. Queue the frances ha clip, right? I'm tired of being a teenager, and finding babes on okcupid only to find their age limit starts after--my-age-no-mans-land--about 5 years from 19, when I can call myself a twenty-something. It's mocking, it's not funny because I swear when I turn 23 or the likes of it, everyone will be chronicling time as a 30-something. So I'm rounding up. My dad and I watched jeopardy, and he said I should get a job, and transfer in-state, however if my transfer app's get me into a school in nyc (*coughs up my soul* hey, columbia!), I will dust off my soapbox and begin ted-talking everyone into giving me money. I imagine myself, a starving writer 20-something, in love with this hot babe 30-something, who had her essay collection published in the paris review, and wants to grow heirloom basil plants with me. That is what 19 merits, a wishlist of sorts.
But at the same time, I just want to be alone, it's so weird to me--referencing okcupid again--that people are NOT okay with their s/o's wanting to be alone, like what the fuck? yes you're all for open relationships when it's about sex, but what about introverted non-monagamy(no not polygamy)--I'm talking I'll spend a week at a time in a library downtown brooklyn, and the next time we run into each other we can maybe kiss or something. That's my goddamn slice of pie, american dream, that I would like to get catered from salt n' pepper indian chef nicknamed blue-eyes.
Welcome to the pseudo-void of growing up, which is in part defined by my lack of eye contact with powerful women and my short girl spite to step on men's shiny-shoed toes, that is, agreeing inclusively with anything that fucks like meaning. It's the same thing I keep telling my atkins diet appraising dad to shut up about, life coaches--paleo dieters--meaning would force them to tell the truth. And beyond truth, all other strategies fail.
I'll entertain those of you who don't understand my vague sarcasm: the half-assed bricks—e g. taking up more space than two seats on the bus and eating donuts alone and emails chains with friends in the west—I lay down to artificialize (yes, red squiggly lines, it is a word!) the being in older skin feels like, of course without yielding to the warning, wait 24 hours to feel the effects of 19. Surprised that you still confuse the novice sarcasm from dentists saying, oh my nothings changed, but your breath stinks. (Note: will only make sense to those who have a dentist in the family).
next time i'll share my manifesto on eating a box of doughnuts (are they the same as donuts?) alone in the park. (aka: radical self seclusion)
until then, see you in a couple sleeps,
cbnl
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