July 8, 2014



I miss the clear-eyed intensity of seventeen -- my determination to get exactly what I wanted.

Everything got hazy after that first year away -- the boundaries, the desires, the choices.

Now here I am a month out from twenty-one, sleeping in other people's beds for six days straight.

It's ten a.m. on a Tuesday morning and I'm in another boys' room. We eat donuts, drink watery coffee, make plans for a rental car and a fifteen hour drive from New York to Michigan.

Let's demand a car with a cassette player and listen to 'Rumors' the entire time.

We Google rent and employment rates in Hawaii, talk about Joan Didion -- making plans for two years from now.

I wonder how many of these schemes I'll build -- this new method for making choices. A year from now, I'll have a list of options.

Get a bar tending license,
smoke on the beach,
become a second grade teacher,
re-read every book from high school English.

When I'm ready, I'll just slide my fingers down the cool, slim page and pick a plan with my eyes closed.

San Francisco with Meredith, Honolulu with Dan, Boston with Erin.

Austin,
L.A.,
Atlanta.

Clinging to others, even as I let go.