Tomorrow can be whatever I choose.
Tomorrow could be the beginning of a fruitful career.
Tomorrow is the last day of my 27th year.
Significant doesn't even begin to cover it. I like to speak in riddles and confusion so that I can always maintain control - I more than need it. I have to have it. The thought of another person knowing what goes on in my attic is frightening - the only place I can truly be myself, the only place where I can store my thoughts. The thoughts nobody is ever going to know, which is just the way I want it. Rather, just the way I need it. Just the way I have to have it. But when I say that the last day of my 27th year is significant, you'll just have to take my word for it. And to give some perspective, we're talking, like, significance of a lifetime here. That kind of significance.
I miss my best friend. I don't miss her everyday anymore. I miss her at random moments, and sometimes not-so-random moments. But the times which occurred daily, usually several times a day, when I would just be suddenly overwhelmed with a memory or grief, without any provocation - those are gone. I knew she would never be totally gone, though. She isn't the first ghost I've known. When you're a child, you think you have the idea of what a ghost is pegged. And I guess in the traditional sense, you might. But now I know what ghosts really are, and that they do exist. They follow us and remind us and haunt us and make us cry and laugh and smile and curse and sigh and shake our heads or fists in frustration and grip the steering wheel while we grit our teeth and taste our tears. That gaping hole they leave is the cruelest part - like the fact that their ghost is following you isn't enough. No. You have to walk around with an empty void inside, one that drains you emotionally and physically. You hold yourself together with your arms and feel the dry burn of your eyes when your body can't cry as many tears as your heart wants to make.
So I remember all the times in my 27th year when it seemed so important. When my prerogative was matte and sloped and dangerous. When I missed her far too much. Now that I don't feel that pull, I almost miss my dedication to the grief. My unwillingness to let it go. I missed her when she was dead but living, and so my memories never faded. They stayed sharp and poignant and colorful, just like she was. Now when I think of her, I see soulless and ashen and gaunt, and my memories wash away, back and forth, in and out; remember some, forget a few, remember one, forget two. And before you know it, they're gone. She's gone. Off to join the club that never really existed, and if it did it's the saddest club and I'm glad for once to feel so young, if you follow.
All of this is leading to an explanation of why I feel tomorrow is so important. I'm going to go full candid, because I'm that healthy right now. There is honesty in every word I just wrote.
- At 12:00 am, I will have traveled over a hurdle I went back and forth on the possibility of overcoming so many times, I should have coined a term in its honor. I'm not creative in that way, though, so we'll just settle for deliberation. Look, I'm not a lazy person. I'm fearful, I have a good memory, and I have limits. When all three of these buttons are activated, the probability of a smooth ride is not good. For a good portion of my 27th year, I was genuinely unsure if I would make it to see my 28th. There. I said it. I missed my friend; I was so, so tired; and believe it or not, despite having made it out alive several months ago, I was convinced that making a break would, well... break me.
So here's to my new career, one I feel excited/passionate/flattered/nervous/ready for. And here's to my life, because it's MY life. I've learned that I'm not so very fragile after all, and that ghosts don't call the shots. I do. I feel valuable for the very first time in my life - not just a feeling of value, but an actual measure of it. L'Oreal should probably pay me for what I'm about to say:
I'm worth it.
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