20 is a fiery, haphazard age. Most of the time I want to jump out of my skin because it feels too hot, too tight for all the things being asked of me. I call my mom at least three times a day and think about sex constantly. I am learning how to make up my own mind about things. Last weekend my mom went on a romantic getaway and I had to make decisions without her input. I stewed for hours, brooding over how selfish it was for her to leave me, a mere 20 year old, alone in a world out to get me. When she came home I didn’t come out of my room to say hi and hoped she felt my bitterness the moment she stepped in the door, as if my emotions could waft like a stench in the air up her nose, into her brain, and settle there forever.
I can’t stand it when I get together with other women for coffee and before bad mouthing someone else, they preface it by explaining how much they love this other person. Ladies, I want you to hate other people because I have people I hate too. I need to know that I am not a monster, but more so, I need you to know that having an opinion that is not “pretty” does not make you ugly. In fact, I think the hottest amongst us women are the ones who dare to be ugly. I don’t wear make up.
I am on the cusp of so much right now. But I am healing at the same time. My face is not recognizable to me at the moment. I look in the mirror and don’t know the girl staring back at me. I don’t recognize her habits, her eyes, or her desires. I am all set to go live in France in the spring. Am I running away? I feel like a spirit that rejects all cages. I haven’t touched myself in weeks.
My life overflows with love. Maybe it’s always been this way and I never noticed it. Actually, that is exactly what has happened. But now, I have learned, or really just started learning, how to walk and talk and breathe like a human and not a machine. I suddenly can sit still. I know how to kiss. I listen to the soundtrack of my surroundings, and mindfully appreciate pleasure and love and experience. This is all I have to offer. When will I have another morning like this? Another night? Why not share it with you?
I have something I have been wanting to say for a while now. But I just don’t know what it is. I feel very neglected by the world. I know this sounds whiny and I don’t care. I feel turned on all the time. Sometimes I can’t decide if I want to be alone or violently loved. I need to have everything go my way and I want to put very little effort into most things. I put effort into my first cup of coffee in the morning and the pores on my nose. If the almond milk isn’t thick enough to make constellations, I have to resist the urge to cry and start all over again.
When I was little I would force my mother to “start over” the morning with me if it didn’t feel perfect from the start. That was a losing game. We can’t start over the morning, and this intensely cruel truth has never stopped haunting me. I could cry now just thinking about it. I kind of am. I am barely 5 and crying and screaming for the morning to not have happened and for my mother to go back to bed and for everyone to be quiet and new again. And my mother is shaking her head and turning away and telling me to come back downstairs when I am ready. And I am shrieking and reeling and hating myself very much for not giving up or controlling my emotions more. I am still told to stop exploding by my family. “You go from 0 to 100.” They say that with revulsion and fear and disbelief coloring their eyes. I think my family cannot believe I still cry and scream at 20 the same as when I was 5. At this point, it feels like a super power that I harbor hatred for.
You have this sort of respect for yourself that I am not used to. You are so good at believing in your dreams and capabilities. Sitting in movies and calling it church. Drinking milkshakes because they are on the menu. Laughing in the middle of your sentences. I mean nothing short of the full truth when I say I adore you. How did you get so sincere and hard to read? This morning you left in a rush for work, heavy sighs and busy eyes, kissing my neck as you said goodbye. I spent the rest of the day agonizing over what mood you were in, if I had suffocated you these past couple days. You just texted me “I so did not want to leave this morning it was painful”.
I don’t put effort into my job or how I drive. I actually like to drive recklessly and my father tries to fix this. My father also made me take a defensive driving course which consisted of an older man coming to drive with me for 2 hours and tell me everything I did wrong on the road. I smoked CBD before and could’ve fallen asleep in the driver’s seat the entire time, but I’m very good at small talk and he felt seen and didn’t complain. He wouldn’t let me play music, and that right there is the reason he didn’t understand why the young drive like they will never die. I am so young and I don’t think people understand that the way I need them to. I want people to not expect anything of me so that when I do anything, it is an unexpected and glorious accomplishment. I expect a lot from everyone around me. I want my boss to give me day shifts, my dad to pay for everything, my mom to date men who realize her worth, my friends to invite me to parties I won’t want to go to, and my lovers to make me come twice in one night.
I am afraid to cook for anyone. I went out to an expensive dinner in Laurel Canyon with a woman I have been attracted to for a couple years now and she told me she is “finally” in a relationship. She shared this as I gave her my good eyes over a beet salad. And I then said a loud sort of praise and took a sip of red and smiled. Honestly, if you’re in a relationship at 20, are you even living? She is very happy in her relationship with a German woman and I am very happy dining with her in Laurel Canyon. Currently, I like having sex a lot with a man who doesn’t make me come. It's not that he doesn’t try, it's that I can’t outrun the fear that I take too long to finish. I only think of this sex when I can’t have it. I am the wettest in the passenger seat of his car when he “has to concentrate” on the road. Nothing turns me on more than tempting someone to break the rules. I also haven’t touched myself in weeks and that has made sex with men easier. And me, hornier. And more desperate. It makes sense why the church banned masturbation: so men would have an easier time in bed, and women would be grateful no matter what they did. I used to be able to drink upwards of 2 cups of coffee a day, but this is my second and my head is spinning. I will finish it even though my intuition tells me not to. That bitch.
I threw a dinner party for my best friends last night. My first in my first apartment. We made sushi and I served wine. All my alcoholic friends adhered to the liquor dress code and drained bottle after bottle of red and white. I let you decide the music. Sometimes songs would come on that I didn’t know we both knew, and my body would fill with warmth. Once you played me a song my father played for me when I was young, and I knew I picked you for a reason. But I didn’t pick you, did I? You chose me.
I want someone to take care of me. I never thought I’d be this type of girl. From the very start, you showed me you will do this. Our first date was a dinner in your home, prepared carefully by you. You showed me playlists you thought I’d like, took me to films I had never seen, showed me places in LA I had never been to. I grew up here. Your house became an escape, no one asks questions when I’m with you. You make me feel loved and safe. I start to let go of control. We listen to music and wander. My mother always said she admires when a man knows how to handle you. I stomped around my apartment in frustration until you held me while I complained and laughed. That was enough. You kiss my nose a lot and once told me you loved my body. You don’t care when I am ugly and foolish. You have patience when I show my age and its downfalls. I am not with you but I want to kiss you at this moment. I have a memory of you kissing my forehead in front of all my friends.
I watched my close friend seduce a boy she finds home with. He was born in Denmark and has seen more of America than any of us. He sleeps in cars and escaped the pandemic in Spain. When she spilled water on my dining room table, he wordlessly wiped it clean. This small gesture of understanding won me over. He bit her ear at the dinner table while she pretended to be in deep conversation with someone else. Her eyes glazed over and I grew hot with ideas of what awaited her once they left the party. He also took her phone slowly out of her hands using only his mouth and sustained eye contact. I think he must be an animal. It turns me on just thinking of it. I caught her showing this boy a face of hers I have never seen. It was her sexuality, her power. She challenged and enticed him with her eyes. She is not the type to let sex bleed into social interactions. When I accidentally saw this face of hers, I laughed long and loud. It was like seeing something magical, colorful, and wild, like I was seeing Santa Clause or a mermaid. Afterwards, once everyone left, standing alone in my new kitchen, a plate in each hand, I wondered if I had offended her by laughing. I wanted her to know why I had laughed. That it was a product of the joy and pride I felt in seeing a new side to someone I thought I knew entirely. When we were 16 she told me she started masturbating, I laughed long and loud then too.
I’m living in a house filled with plants and sleeping in a room full of light. I have never been this aware of my blessings. My friends are beautiful and growing like trees around me. I watch them expand and learn and succeed. Time treats us so well. My father seems kinder and more sentimental by the hour, or maybe I have just slowed down enough to finally see how good of a man he is. Some days I still wake with unknown dread, but now I breathe out on my walks in the botanical garden.
Have you listened yet to the room you’re in?
“ In fact, I think the hottest amongst us women are the ones who dare to be ugly.
Sometimes I can’t decide if I want to be alone or violently loved. I need to have everything go my way and I want to put very little effort into most things.
He wouldn’t let me play music, and that right there is the reason he didn’t understand why the young drive like they will never die.”
+ that last paragraph.
i would spend my whole day reading words like this if i could.
i love this piece - i keep parts of it etched into my journals, and my mind for that matter. what a mind to behold, what a person i feel so lucky to share a bit of life and spirit with.