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...
The bad news, and the very very good news is that it won't be like this forever. It turns out I probably won’t live all the lives I thought I would. I might never be the girl who wears eyeliner wandering the streets of New York City in the rain. Or the girl who lives in a little house filled with plants by the beach. I might not ever get to go backstage with the band, or fly on a private jet. I might not have gardens to walk through or a sky rise office to look out from. I don’t know. I might. But I’m coming to terms with the fact that my life is just my own and there’s no amount of Pinterest pictures or Instagram stories that will make my pieces fit into something else. It’s weird to let go of that. That when I was 11 I had no idea who I would be at 15. And then I thought I knew. And then I thought I knew again after that. And now I think I know at 21. And the truth is I never will know, not until my very last day, when I look back and realize what it all ...