prompt: explore on the softness & blurring of edges—dawn/dusk, the place between sleep and wakefulness, transitions from youthfulness to adulthood and adulthood to old age. what do those borders & changes feel like, look like, smell like?
I used to envision life as a rollercoaster track stretching out in front of me. For my school years, I was on the initial upward hill, when the cars are still being pulled along by the chains and wheels and motors. With all that machinery moving you forward, it seems pretty supportive at first glance. But at the end of the day, you're still on a track. I trusted it my entire childhood and then some, thinking it'd lead me somewhere that was best for me.
College was a cold, depressing blur. In retrospect, I might have gone just to run away from home, but God, it was miserable. I was far from home, it was cold all the time, I had no friends, no car, no money, but nowhere to be but class, so why should it matter, right? I relied on Youtube to be my friend then, and it was because of it I realized I didn't know why I was there. One night, falling asleep to a video, I heard the thought: "When people ask me what I was doing at seventeen, I have to say I was just... truly enjoying life." I laid there, eighteen, still waiting for my life to start. I was only here because I was told I wanted it. I called my mom the next day and told her I wanted to come home.
In other circumstances, I might have considered this a mistake. But I came home anyway, vowing to make my life mine- and allowing myself the fun I never had when I was younger, before I made myself grow up. This was in January 2020. I don't think I need to elaborate.
I don't fight with my mom nearly as much as I used to. I don't know if she's changed, or I have. If I've changed, I don't know if it's for better or for worse. As a kid, I always bent for her, just to avoid the conflict. I envy my brother, who hardened himself and lives despite her. I wish I could hate my mother more than I do. It'd make leaving a lot easier, at least.
I'll have had my job for three years soon. I'm finally moving out, next week. I want to marry my partner someday, hopefully soon. I might want children. I never stopped being a child. I never got to be a child. I'm still trying to be a child. Am I allowed to do that?
I remember being in high school, senior year, and told by my teacher that we were in a "transitional stage" of our lives. I don't think she meant it'd last five years like this. And though I finally think I see a light at the end of the tunnel, I keep expecting the tunnel to... get longer. And keep extending, for the rest of my life. But I know this feeling from being a depressed teenager who "didn't want to get better." Life will keep moving, regardless. I have no choice.
Maybe I'm still on that rollercoaster track. Maybe I'm about to reach the drop.
