No One Warns You About the Responsibilities

 I am 32. I have a job, a car, a house, and furniture to fill that house. I pay electric, sewage, water, gas, and phone bills. I pay for insurance for me, my car, and my house. I even got my drivers license today. While I am grateful for everything, I know things can be very very bad in this world for someone of my color and gender, it just feels like a weight. You could say, I don't have to have these. And you'd be right. I was doing the sensible thing. Investing, budgeting, building. But for what!  

One day you're 15 and no one trusts you with a rock. And one day, they let you buy a house! I am scared every day that I will lose it all. My title is serious, people my age have kids and pets, and I am supposed to be serious-- a grown up. I don't know when it all ended and I was handed all this paperwork and taxes. 

Part of me wants to live a life of no attachments. Wandering from one city to another. I imagined a life of me in a New York City apartment, sipping tea from my window overlooking the shimmering life. Or, walking down the streets of Prague with my hands in a fuzzy woolen coat. No responsibilities, no cooking, no ties.  

Now, I live in this little village...........with all these things. Everyday is a struggle that I somehow manage to survive. The one thing missing is joy. Or maybe something even greater--purpose. 

Too Sweet

 At 32, I now drink black coffee. Just a few years back, if you gave me black coffee I'd make a puke-y face. My coffee was sugar in liquid form. Four of those tiny creamer packs and six packets of sugar. Twice a day. 

I used to like chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips and chocolate sauce on it. Now I prefer vanilla. In fact, I used to eat boxes of sweets in a day. Now, even a chocolate can feel too much sometimes. 

I used to wear all black. Now, I add some color. 

I am stunned just typing this out. 

So much can change so fast, yet much remains the same. I still want a true love. I still want to feel like I belong. I want to want to wake up. I want to forgive myself and love myself no what what I achieved or how much I failed. I want to be happy.

I expected to be happier by 32. I expected that I'd have my shit together by now, yet I am more messier than I have ever been. I still feel like that 18 year old wanting to run but nowhere to run to. Some days, I feel like that 8 year old, standing in my school, feeling utterly alone and helpless all over again. 

Thinking of the future is scary. What if I keep declining? What if the peak is behind me? What if they were all right that I didn't deserve anything? What if my regrets turn into a boulder on my chest and finally crush the air out of me?

It is hard for me to imagine myself at even 35, or 38, or even 42.  

But I am here. I have a body that remembers these 32 years, and a wounded mind that catastrophizes. My life looks good on paper, and still cuts every day. But I’m still here. And I’m learning that surviving isn’t the same as living. I want the second one.