Your birthday is coming up. It is barreling toward you with an unsatisfied urgency that seems to shake the very ground you walk on. The sky melts from blue to black over and over and you’re nervous, to say the least. You know that nothing will change overnight, but over many tall nights filled with ache and falling stars.
Soon you will have lived two decades, and you will not be able to call yourself a teenager anymore. You will no longer get to hang on to the “1” in the age that kept you close to your childhood—only a year older, but a milestone ahead.
Remember when you used to get stomachaches at night, crying to your mother that you didn’t want to grow up? You were so small then; why did you dwell on it? Perhaps because you knew that the innocent sweetness on your fingertips would melt away into the rough pressure of responsibility. Even at six or seven, you understood that the future would not be so kind as the present. So you do now, too.
I suppose the next time you read these words, the clock will have struck and you will be on the other side. Is the air outside heavier where you are? Does it bite with the cold realization that you will never return from there? Or is it warm with fluttering potential and vast opportunity? Please let me know, so I can plan what to wear (I’ll pack a suitcase).
Do you look back often? I know you do. The safety of nostalgia has been a friend and an enemy for as long as you’ve been able to remember. It is glowing and inviting, but sometimes too much so… Do you still get stomachaches at night?
One last thing. You’re not alone, are you? I’m asking, but also telling. You might find yourself as the only being in a room, your solitary breath filling up the corners and wisping up the walls, but there are other beings just outside the door. It’s funny, it seems there’s always an other side.
I look forward to hearing from you. I don’t entirely look forward to being you, though. Until then, I’ll look back and reminisce, packing a suitcase (or two) with an extra coat, a doorknob, and anything else I might need where you are.
I’ll see (be) you soon.