you’re free now
to live your life
the way you want
for the first time ever
it’s all your choice
to make

and until you find
someone who can live
without telling you otherwise
it will stay that way

and what i forgot
to tell you is

(now keep in mind that
nobody can tell you
what to do this is just
a suggestion but
as you know i am blessed
with superior knowledge)

that you and me
(maybe macklemore
but we don’t plan
our futures around
such fickle creatures
as that disreputable
species known as men)
will find a cute little
lake town
the kind with rich
snobbish retired folks
and tourists
and boat tours and all
that watery nonsense

and we’ll open an
adorable little shop
and sell flowers
all sorts of
artistanal gifts
and we’ll have coffee
and warm homemade
pastries in the mornings

and we might not get
rich but we’ll make a
living which is all
that really matters

and we will retire
about 70
sell our shop to some
young whippersnappers
that remind us
of who we were when
we were younger
and more foolish

(but don’t assume we
will be significantly less
foolish at this point
in fact i hope that we
will actually age like
some sort of hilarious
variety of moldy cheese)

and we shall retire
to our tiny little
lake front residence
and occupy a front porch
with a glass crystal pitcher
of well-spiked peach tea
and jeer at everyone under the
age of eighty who passes by

and that, my dear
is what i wanted to express to you
that you’ve got
an entire life ahead
of you and cannot afford
to be put on the back burner
for somebody else’s
shimmery dreams of grandeur

so don’t think
too hard about my plan
because that’s all just
castles in the clouds
the story i tell myself
at night when i’m too
worried about the future
to get to sleep

but think
about this

today was not
the end
today was another
day in the very
mucky and unsubstantiated
middle segment of your life

(the middle is
the worst
like the middle of an afghan
or the middle of a poem
that is quickly derailing
from the original point
and i am afraid that when we’re
neither young nor old
but middle aged
nobody will laugh at our jokes
except ourselves
so maybe it doesn’t even matter)

and now
you get to
wake up tomorrow
and continue on
with your life
the way you want it

(which isn’t to say you’ll
live it alone forever but
you must live it alone until
you know you can survive alone)

so this is what i’ve been
meaning to tell you

other people come and go
(except me
you’re stuck there)
but you will spend
more time with yourself
than anybody else

and i’ve been
meaning to tell you
life goes on and
you’re going to get old
and it’s better to grow
old at peace with your
choices than to be
young forever and fooling
yourself into thinking
things will change
so there’s no doubt
you did the right thing

so here’s the
point of all this

i love you
and have always tried
my best to be your
biggest supporter
but that’s going
to change today

because today
was your first lesson
in being your own
biggest supporter

so cheers to this
the future
growing old
and growing happy

now get out there
an knock em dead