Today was my birthday (I am 19 and…you know, I keep waiting to feel like an adult and like this is my second year doin’ the thing, and I feel like I’m still kind of five and needing to hold hands to cross the street, you feel me?) and I just want to say one thing.
Sometimes things are good. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes they’re awful, sometimes they’re acutely horrible and sometimes they’re just low-level unpleasant, but other times they’re good. And like, listen, eight years ago I was alone and depressed and drowning, and four years ago I was shouting in classes and getting in fights in hallways and running the ragged edge of expulsion and hurting myself by accident because I was so bored that I would scratch my arms or scalp raw without thinking, and I still have really terrible days when I shake with anxiety or have flashbacks or feel like I’m in everybody’s way or can’t eat food I haven’t prepared myself.
But today I’m home from college on spring break and I slept in, and I went out to a coffee shop with my parents and argued about how well anarchy would work as a theoretical political system and laughed and joked, and my best friend @twistedangelsays sent me an all-caps message to wish me happy birthday and listened to me talk about the novel I’m planning to write about a bisexual technopath and her girlfriend taking down corrupt governments together, and I watched Mad Mac: Fury Road with my parents and it was just as good the nth time around. And it was good.
So I guess my point is that…if it’s bad for you right now, I get that. I’ve been there. And as cliche as it sounds, it does get better. To quote what is (in my opinion) one of the best action movies humanity’s ever churned out, “It’s a hard day.” And sometimes it’s just a hard day. But other times it’s good. And today was good.
And I’ve decided that it might be okay to hold hands when you cross the street even if you’re a grown-up.
