an ode to my early twenties.

 

There was a period of my life when I felt light, carefree. Light as a feather. I'd swing and twist and nearly lift my toes right off the ground to fly. I knew there were consequences, but when they came, I dealt with them casually, flippantly, did the minimal amount to make them go away so I could go back to feeling infinitely small and able to be blown every which way by the universe.

 

This lightness, it wasn't always a good thing. It's doesn't inspire much hope for digging your heels into the ground and holding steady.

 

Steady. Steady, now.

 

In my early twenties, geez, nothing felt steady. Not my living situation, my bank account, my relationships, especially my means of expressing my emotions. No, I was light. Too light for steady. A constant state of flux means lots of wonderful, beautiful change. But it also means nothing is certain, stable.

 

There was nothing sturdy about my existence.

 

Light is good, though, for a number of reasons. It allows for curiosity, adventure, learning to compromise and improvise. It's recklessness and pushing the boundaries and finding out how it feels when you say nothing when every fiber of your being screams 'Take a stand!"

 

I have this vision of myself, my early twenties self. I'm expelling and consuming so much energy, I'm feeling like I could be blown miles by one mouthful of breath sent in my direction as a gust. I'm so light that the smallest thing, a smell, a chord, one word can send me reeling to further boundaries in my emotional spectrum than I ever previously knew possible. I'm learning at every turn so much. I'm gobbling it all up so willingly. Why wouldn't I?

 

But I mean, there's the other side of that too.

 

I'm spending my last 200 dollars on that pair of jeans that make my butt look the best it's ever looked, because what could possibly be more important than a pair of jeans that fit perfectly? I'll pay my phone bill next month, I swear. And then I'll swear off jeans completely in the next sentence, but it doesn't matter. I'm too light to be reached and dragged down. I'll just float away from it all.

 

It was a time to abuse my body and my mind, really put it through the test of everything it can take.

 

There's something to be said about being willing to completely let go of everything around you. Relinquish control. I'm not so good at that now, things weigh down on me, hold me in place,  prevent me from throwing back those five extra shots. Or maybe it's the feeling the next day etched into my memory from being repeated one too many times.

 

Either way, I'm heavier now, in a sense. And that's fine. Really, it is. I mean, it's just one of those things I think that happens with time. You brush up against things and the friction leaves their residue and pretty soon you're covered in parts and pieces of everything you've ever run into, and the build up makes you heavier. Or something like that.

 

Isn't it hilarious how people never change? Isn't it heartbreaking to realize that we have to anyway?

 

When you're young, when you're light, there's still hope that one day you'll collide into one another full speed again. They'll catch up, or you will, or you'll find a way back to each other through darkened alleys and fields of wildflowers. It's easier. It helps you to stay light to think this way. You're never as naive as when you tell yourself that you're going to be forever friends with the person that just drove away from you.

 

I mean, you've just given them part of your heart. You feel lighter just from it's lack of mass in your chest cavity.

 

  

Dearest self. You did light like a champion. It's possible that you did the very best you could have done with what you had. Maybe no one could have done it better in this body, hooked up to this mind. Certainly no one could have done it the exact same way. No one could have possibly ended up in the exact same places and time that you did.

 

I came out whole.

 

That time is over.

 

I may be heavier, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. I feel whole, sturdy, up to the challenge. And sometimes, every now and then, I still feel slivers of light hitting me at the right angle. And I dance and float in them.

life doesn't play fair- part 1

Sixteen days ago my parents moved my brother, Eric, into his dorm room- a healthy eighteen year old college freshman eager to hit the books and  hit the football field and hit the booze. 


I watched my brother grow up, he was born when I was almost seven. He's more like me in personality than either of my other two siblings. He's a sarcastic little bastard... as am I.  He's always excelled academically and despite bad Asthma as a kid, worked extra hard so he would excel at football.




And excel he did.




We've always been a big football family, and I mean tears are shed and entire autumns hinge upon the sport, but I swear I've spent the past several years rolling my eyes repeatedly during every family interaction because of the degree to which my parent's lives have obviously revolved around Eric's football aspirations. But who wouldn't want to have supportive parents willing to get involved and make sure you have everything you need to succeed?


Not only have my parents never missed a game, my dad flew and drove with Eric to schools around the country as he was deciding where he would go to college and ultimately, play football. He had lots of schools interested in him athletically and academically. And I get to brag about him because he's my brother.


He's good.


He's just really good at football.


So when he finally chose a school only 45 minutes away from home for college, it was no surprise that part of his decision fed into the fact that he wanted my parents and the rest of our family to continue to be able to come to every game. And he picked a smaller school because he planned to start. As a freshman.


Stubborn determination, always. We have that in common as well.


And then graduation and this summer flew right by,  a whirlwind of work-outs, getting ready for college, figuring out what classes a physical therapy major takes their first semester, and corrdinating who was bringing what with his roommate. In all the activity and heat and hard work, he lost thirty pounds. Granted, he was still like 220 lbs, but still, he was looking svelte and ready to hit the books football field. All the sudden BOOM he was gone at school and my life didn't change that much.


And then yesterday morning my mom got a funny mom-sense tingle that something wasn't quite right, because despite hard work-outs and a slight environmental change, there was no possible way her son should have lost what was now 40 pounds.


So she got up, drove to his college, and took his ass to the hospital.




And almost immediately, everything changed.




To be continued...


Xo Sare

PB&J and Gumballs.

Meh.


I'm not really feeling it today, kiddos.


Just to bring things up to speed, I signed up for the GRE last night. I feel real heavy today.




I'd like to say something along the lines of "I need a Xanax," but since I've never actually had one, I don't really know if that would make me feel any better whatsoever. But, judging from the way everyone raves about prescription drugs, I'm thinking that's a bandwagon I may want to hitch a ride on for a while. Until shit gets expensive, because I don't have any money at present time.


SIGH.


I'm bad at being poor. I mean, I was good at it in college, but all I really had to do was pay rent and pay to get myself drunk on the weekends. Better times. I guess I'm really not even that poor, I do make well above a 'living wage,' whatever that means. But, I have needs. I get hungry now and I want to eat something other than gumballs and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.


Which for about four months in colllege, I did subsist on PB&J and gumballs.


Sophomore year, I was living with the laziest girl I've ever met and the damaged girl who let her coke dealer move in with us. She kicked him out on weekends when her boyfriend from home would come up. There wasn't a whole lot of dialogue going on between us. Lazy roomate ended up getting her masters as Stanford in Molecular Genetics. Damaged roomate dropped out and went back home to her mother. I haven't spoken to either since we lived together. So much for forging last bonds, eh?


We had a cute little apartment right off campus with a screened-in porch, that was its best feature. People could come and get bamboozled with me on the porch without disturbing the two shut-ins. It was a total slum and we overpaid dramatically for it, but I didn't care. I fucking loved that place because it was mine, I'd work forty hours a week and take twenty hours of class a term and not bother with sleep a lot of the time so I could still get drunk with my friends.


Hardcore, eh?




Anyway, around spring, I think it was April, I finally broke up with the boyfriend I had had virtually since I got to college for the last time and it was a little rough. As in, he had paid for all of my food and booze for almost two years and now I was fucked. Something had to give, and I obviously still had to get drunk, it was college.


I'd eat two PB&J's twice a day. Once a week I'd treat myself to Subway. I've never looked better. I was always hungry, but I got better grades that term than I ever had before and ever did again. I was a total shit-show. All the sudden I had time to spend with my girlfriends and we'd do stupid crazy shit like busting every liqour/wine bottle from the year on the mantle in the middle of the street while screaming. I was underage and reckless and when the cops came I fled while the officer tried to get my friend Courtney's number as she swept the glass off the street by the dim glow of his squad car's headlights. I'd walk home alone at night at four in the morning drunk as a skunk, skipping, daring the gangbangers I shared the sidewalk with to 'Fucking try and start something with me."


I was in bad shape.


Jordan, ex-college-boyfriend had, near the end of our relationship, bought me a HUGE box of over 1000 gumballs at Sam's Club in an attempt to make me happy. He knew me well, I adore gumballs, but it didn't work. For months after our breakup I'd scatter candy dishes of green and yellow gumballs around the apartment in a feeble attempt at hospitality. I hate green and yellow gumballs.


All good things must come to an end. In June I left for New Hampshire, where I taught little JAP's to kayak. It was a good summer. I spent six hours a day on the water and ate at a buffet three meals a day. I got paid to sing at campfires and preach girl power. I didn't drink, didn't need to. I snapped out of my crazed lifestyle for a while. It was kind of nice.

I still got crazy when I went back to school in the fall, but never like I did that spring.
I can't buy a huge box of gumballs and then live on a loaf of bread/jar of jelly/can of peanut butter each week anymore, but at least once, I could. And I did.




Something about living that way is okay when you're in college that's not okay when you're three years out, use more of your paycheck to pay bills than to play, and stop drinking heavily on weeknights.


I think...... this may be... nah....... well, maybe....... growing up?




Sometimes I miss that me.

XO Sare