My trek to the grocery store via bicycle was an overambitious endeavor prompted by unusually warm weather, no food, and a lack of car insurance.
For the first time in my adult life I’d forgotten to renew my coverage, which was due on a Sunday, and I was too busy sleeping in and sipping mimosas to bother with things like bodily injury and property damage liability. Then I found myself (sort of) car-less with a naked fridge, and a sister needed to eat.
This is where shit goes south.
In 9th grade, I wrote a love letter to a boy. I imagine it was entirely dramatic—depicting my teenage longing and the color of his eyes with gag-inducing metaphors—but genuinely heartfelt, and honest nonetheless. And while I tried my hardest to emulate the letter-writing greats, like Oscar Wilde and John Keats, my letter read like a scene from Degrassi with the raw emotion of a Dashboard Confessional hit.
If there is one thing our parents raised us to be, it’s honest people. Growing up, we were given the space and the freedom to make our own mistakes with the expectation that no matter the grandeur of our follies, we would clean up our messes with a little grace, and a lot of truth. Liars were not welcome at our kitchen table.
The journey to her couch took six weeks of suffering before I arrived. I claimed one corner and pulled my knees to my chest, effectively shrinking myself to a pathetic dot. I assumed that if the world intended to swallow me, I’d go down easier that way. I held my feet for comfort, then glanced at my savior with total desperation—I wanted her to save me.
Thesaurus.com and I were on good terms, until I plunked “self-love” in its search bar and it retorted with “narcissism” and “vainglory.” Then we broke up.
I met him in a room filled with words handwritten by the lonely and the suffering, unaware that eventually, I’d thread him through my own pages, weaving the fabric of my volumes with our memories. I couldn’t have recognized the foreshadowing.
Post-college graduation, I was lucky enough to snag a full-time job only two months after crossing the stage. Which, given the job market, was a miracle. And while I was happy to avoid the panic prompted by unemployment and too much debt, I was, to be frank, fucking terrified.
Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist fell into my queue six weeks ago by the hand of my brother, Logan, and quickly rose to the top of my list of favorites. The 208-page narrative recounts a young boy’s prophetic dream, and his journey across the desert in search of treasure; it’s a story of self-discovery, spirituality, and destiny. Simply written, but deeply moving.
At 14, having barely breached teenagehood, I’d never been in love. Then a Chocolate Lab stole my heart.
I dragged myself to my second-floor window, and clung to the sill with white knuckles—my lungs laboring against the thick, hot air. Tears poured from my ducts like unhinged floodgates, and choking back sobs, I watched as he reluctantly backed out of his parking space, and out of my life.
SO VICARIOUS 