Sometimes when I am asleep, and the wind is coming in through the window of my childhood bedroom, I can almost feel you here. For a sleepover, the way we used to do all the time. It was just our clothes then, I didn’t know what was mine or yours. It was our day then, we never left each other’s sides. It was our life then, a pact that if we made it to 40 and were still single, we’d run away together and live on the beach in Mexico. I always wake up in a sweat from those dreams now. Now I live in your phone as an unknown cell number, I live in your photos as a girl you used to know. I live in that stain I left on the carpet of your truck when my bubblegum ice cream melted. Now I’m the most hated girl. For twenty-five years in a row. If you’ve never been the last choice friend, undiagnosed depression at a very young age, artsy but filled with melancholy girl, then you’ve never been the most hated girl. But I’ve worn her skin all my life. At first it was the separate group chat with 9 memb...
I always knew I needed to get out of my hometown. It’s not that I didn’t love it, or the people, but I was outgrowing it. And I could feel the box getting tighter as I got bigger. So when I was seventeen, I left. I moved to a city eight times it’s size, lived with 3 strangers (my now best friends) and changed my entire life. It was amazing. But now it’s worn off. And suddenly...I feel claustrophobic in the space. Is it possible I outgrew this place too? I mean, I could go bigger: Vancouver, Toronto, New York maybe? But would I outgrow that too? As I started to feel the new wearing off, I immediately looked for a new place to go. Now I’m here, in this new place, and it still doesn’t feel right. I feel in the way of other people’s lives, and more importantly, not on the path of my own. I do this. I bounce around, from place to place, person to person, hobby to hobby, and after a period of time, I get this overwhelming urge to change things. And so I leave peo...