I keep thinking about this summer—about starting a new school—and as soon as I do, I find myself internally monologuing and getting all high-schooly. It’s hoot, I know, but I can’t seem to help it.

‘You know,’ I think, as I’m eyeing myself in the bathroom mirror, ‘I’ll just turn up, looking good, feeling confident about myself and do whatever I want. I’ll go out, meet people and just be that vibe.

I was conflabing with Lisa last night, as we painted our toenails, “I’m a sufficient person, right? I asked rhetorically, “I can work out my thoughts alone, happily pass periods of solitude—nourishing my soul on YouTube.. Ooo, I like that color,” I said.
“You have personal power,” she assured me, as we admired her new nail polish color.

Growing up, my parents moved us, like luggage, about every two years. You can’t just be like, “This is actually crazy.” You’re forced to make a start, with a certain callousness of spirit, because uprooting your day-to-day domestic life, leaving friends, is hard. But I’d end up ok, I integrate quickly, as I love dropping into new cultures—people are so nuanced and clever.

So I've done this before, I have ‘lived experience,’ and I guess I can do it again. Still, I have this, what, adolescent nervousness, where my mind is spinning—even in dreams—planning my new first-day wardrobe, like a middle schooler, three months in advance (I’m a pre-crastinator).

In my heart, I know the source of my  untoward apprehension. Social precarity frightens me. I need other minds to rub up against and the constant stimulation and excitement of friends.

But I’m a 21 year old, grown woman—what’s wrong with me?
.
Songs for this:
These Days by Nico
find my way home MisterWives

Fluid, flowing, glowing

Don’t disconnect, keep going

Swimming through the water like a tribe of rainbow otters

Reconnecting to the self I’ve been dissecting
For year after year
Fear after fear
With tear after tear I am finally whole
A role and sole rolling back into the fold
Creating a story to be told
Grateful to let this world unfold

From grief to relief with no need for belief
Instead, be a lead, slowly blowing in the breeze
Finally flowing free with ease

Less disconnect, more disco
Reconnected, I can let go
Resurrected, I can now grow

There’s a darkness that’s blacker than coal
But it isn’t enlightenment’s goal
To escape from the night
Or to bathe it in light
But to use it and make yourself whole

No, not a melting ***
you know, the kind you get in industrial kitchens:
heavy, stained, covered and sealed,
left to boil and bubble, leaving questions
about herbs and spices and what we’ve concealed.

No, not a melting ***
but a large, glass salad bowl, the kind you place
in the centre of a garden trestle table
glistening in the sunlight,
with two oversized dark wood serving spoons
and a glossy drizzle of vinaigrette dressing.

The glass revealing every shade
of green and black and red, yellow and white
teasing us with every crunch of each anticipated bite,
each variety and shape, inviting us to participate, to fill our plates
and in this feast of an adventure, to celebrate
what we are - together.

And there you’ll learn
you are either them
or you

solving for X
tearing down any defense
any pretense

where X = right
and right = real
and real = them

because you are a number
that doesn’t exist
a square root of negative nine

and to you
dividing by zero should have made
infinity

but there you’ll learn
that you can’t divide
by zero

and the square root
of negative nine
can never be X

to them, to you, you’ll forever be
not a solution
but an error

My Inner Friend
Taught me to breathe.
To sing, to dance,
And follow my heart.

We merged
Into One Heart
One body
One Soul
One mind.  

Thank you."
My heart overflows
With Love.