Old Friend

Time took us in different directions

But here I am scrolling through thoughts

Ideas and questions tossed around on Facebook Chat.

 

Like the question I was supposed to answer,

The one you dared me to answer at graduation

I never gave an answer, and it seems I still can’t.

That person on the other side of the monitor will always be waiting.

 

Did you know I finally saw Shawshank Redemption and I agree,

That would have been the worst way to sneak out of my house.

 

I’m far from the girl sitting on the other side of the screen.

But in this moment, reading these old memories, I might as well be seventeen again;

Frustrated, hopeless and able hide my thoughts between the lines

It was a sort of hobby, one I admittedly still practice today

 

Yet somehow you were curious enough to ask and just as lost perhaps.

We spoke in stories, and played pretend with our thoughts.

As we laid our masks alongside the truth,

 

By simply saying, “Hey, there Delilah”,

You found me at the place where I felt loneliest;

Just when I thought I was helping you.

What it feels like to turn 21

I promise I’m not actually a hoarder. I had been saving my old papers and binders from grade school just in case. But, as the landfill that is the space under my desk reached its maximum capacity, I’m was left with nowhere to hide this year’s mountain of textbooks. With only one year left of college, I figured the future had arrived. It was time deal with the result of my hoarder-like tendencies. 

 ——

Trash-bag in hand, music blasting through my headphones, I sat down and begin sorting.

“When in doubt, throw out,” I said to mentally prepare for the paper purge.

My floor soon became a war zone of decaying notebooks, torn folders and neglected flashcards. Cleaning up my old Spanish binders brought back memories I can’t translate anymore. High school math assignments and all of their terrors were thrown victoriously into the trash. I opened up a dusty binder from middle school and marveled at how my much handwriting had improved– trust me, that’s not saying much.

Crouching under my desk, sorting through piles of my academic history, I sifted through the years of my life I had spent in my bedroom pouring blood, sweat, tears and procrastination into my assignments.

I realized, as I found pieces of teenage poetry hidden away in my old notebooks, that many of the same demons that plagued me as a teenager still do — they’ve just taken different forms. Now I worry about how I will find my place; how I will make a living and who I will be sharing my life with. 

I guess I’ve never been great at letting go. As a child, I dreaded the monkey bars. Lacking upper arm strength, I usually ended up falling. But then there were those times that I made it to the second, third, even fourth rung. It all depended on how much I hesitated when letting go of the last bar.

At this point in my life, I am reaching out for the next stage in my life. Slowly, I’m learning that growing up isn’t about changing myself, it’s simply making the choice to let go bravely.

Two bags and a new outlook on life later, the purge is complete. All of my textbooks have found a new home and now, I set out on a different type of journey taking with me the best of the past 21 years.