My mom sent me a message this afternoon informing me that, exactly 21 years ago today, I left Seattle for the Arizona desert.
Ironically, I left the Arizona desert for Seattle when I turned 21,
It's hard to look at life sometimes and see where I am, compared to where I thought I'd be by now. I was supposed to be someone... do something important... do anything.
21 years ago I was a skinny ugly awkward 13 year who had just learned how to shave her legs but still had no idea that the world was kinder to girls who had perfectly groomed eyebrows, short skirts, and too much perfume. And now here I stand, mid-thirties, far from gangly, less ugly, slightly less awkward, and with a much greater understanding of a world where the beautiful girls go out on Friday nights and I read computer software release notes in my pajamas with my cat.
It's not the worst life I could live. In fact, it's the happiest I've been in years. But that's part of the problem. When you live so much of your life waiting for the other shoe to drop, happiness is a dangerous lover to flirt with. I've given my heart away so many times, I've started to find pieces of it in thrift stores alongside discarded VCRs, records, and other means of obsolete communication.
We live in a world where everything is merely surface deep because that's all we feel safe with anymore. When I was 13, I would've given anything be told I was beautiful and now... a guy recently started telling em I was beautiful and every time, I instinctively laugh in response. It's not that I find the comment funny... I just don't know what to say other than "I don't believe you in the slightest bit. If you scratched even a millimeter below my surface, you'd run screaming like hundreds of guys before you."
We keep everyone at arm's distance these days because it's safe, and we sacrifice authenticity for a false sense of security.
Twenty one years ago I wanted a fairytale romance. When I was 21, I just wanted romance. Now? Now I want something authentic. It's not about the looks or the cars or the salaries or the flashandbang flattery that distracts us from the reality.
I want something I can touch. Something I can taste and feel in my soul. I want authentic love with imperfections, hard-working hands, rough and calloused from a live well-lived. I want eyes that aren't afraid to look into mine and see who I really am. I want a voice that isn't afraid to whisper vulnerabilities in the quiet embrace of a winter night. I want real love with tattered edges and faithful roots. I want my worth to lie in my soul, rather than my beauty, and a man who can recognize that without needing to be told,
I want life to be an adventure, not a disappointment. I want passion and fire and hope and laughter and everything we overlook on a daily basis in pursuit of the "American Dream"... now sponsored by Corporate America executives.
The only place I truly feel alive and free is in my car, with the windows down, the breeze in my hair, and the radio up as loud as humanly possible.
Because when the radio is loud enough you can't hear someone crying. When the radio is loud enough, you are never sad, and most of all, when the radio is loud enough, you can literally feel it in your heart.
Few things in life are so pure and true.
I don't get out much around town, but I'm great at road trips. The same strip of Interstate 5, running from one border to the other and back. It's a long few thousand miles, but when it's just me and God and the radio...
I am never more happy or alive
I may never learn how to fully be "beautiful" in the eyes of a man beyond washable surface value, but I'm an expert in singing 80s rock anthems at the top of my lungs, And I guess in a way, it kinda makes me feel beautiful to be that free.
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