twenty three is…

shapeless, lovely and lonely. we are together in our singularity; the paths ahead for each of us are different, but the tiniest bit clearer each day. we don’t know how long we’ll get to work together, or live together, but we try to forget about that at happy hour.

the sharp intersection of youth and growth. longing all at once for a fading childhood and for a future that will feel right when it comes. (it’s here, in slowly-arriving pieces, by the way.) the thrill of realizing that the stage of your life is springing up around you.

forgiving yourself for saying the wrong thing, for trying on versions of yourself that didn’t fit quite right. learning to turn your regrets into a roadmap. failing hard, falling harder and still being okay.

long-shot job applications and boarding passes you can barely afford. carry-ons and playlists stuffed full of hope. spending your first tax return on a flight headed east. skipping airbnb for an air mattress that covers your best friend’s entire living room floor.

slowing down in the hopes time will take its cues from you and slow down a bit, too. rediscovered love for snail mail and libraries and early farmers’ markets. the curious phenomenon of non-hungover saturday mornings.

searching in bars (and in grocery checkout lines) for the person meant hold your electric ambition and floodlight love. they say things fall into place when you stop looking – but you peek impatiently between fingers anyways, wistfully downloading that dating app…again.

freedom, the most you’ve ever had, silvery and dangerous and cupped in your hands. no matter how confining the cubicle is, it’s on you to leave if you’d like to. everything is on you from here on out, actually. as it should be.

riding the rollercoaster from confidence to humility and back again. you know things that would make your thirteen-year-old self astounded and proud. up the road, your thirty year old self is patiently waiting to blow your mind.

hours-long phone calls with old friends who never stopped being there for you. making new friends with the strange and startling present moment, the one that looks little like what you thought it might, but belongs so entirely to you.