"I like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite new a thing. Muscles better and nerves more."

-e.e. cummings

This is comforting.

When I was a kid, I can remember worrying about moving into my first apartment. I thought about all the things I'd need to live on my own--silverware, plates, a vacuum, a microwave, etc--and it all overwhelmed me. Never mind that this date was a long ways away, it still seemed so impossible that I'd be able to procure all these random items. It hit me yesterday that I used to feel like this. Of course, here I am in my house, and all the pieces fell into place quite easily without my even realizing that this happened. I got some stuff fo free, some stuff fo cheap, and my roommates provided a lot.

And here I am worrying about the transition from college to the real world--getting a job, making this life decision, wondering how everything's going to fall into place. But it works the same way, right? Slowly, and with help from others, the pieces fall into place without your realization that it's happened. And I've also learned that very rarely does anything in life hit you that you're completely unready and unprepared for.

God. I feel like my college years are over and done with, I still have one more. But I feel like they're gone. I always become incredibly nostalgic whenever I'm in my room, in my bed, in Little Rock (I hate Little Rock). I wouldn't give anything to be a freshman again. I've done that. I don't want to do it again. But. There was something so thrilling and fresh about being eighteen. Of course, I was also naive and nervous and inexperienced (or at least more so), and I wouldn't want to be that person again. It was exhausting.

Still. Still.

I feel old. I'm going to be twenty-two in about a month, tell me, where did years 19-22 go?

They went by in classrooms and bars and bedrooms. Mostly. Not so much in bars, but I like the way that sounds.

Why do the words, "When you're married with children" sound so foreign coming out of my mom's mouth? And it's always spoken of as though this is, obviously, my goal. Honestly, my sights are set on happiness in the form of success and peace with myself, doing things that interest me, things that I love (of course, this is vague, but so am I). It shouldn't piss me off that she says this so often, but it does. I can do so many more things than find a man get pregnant. I wish this were acknowledged more often.

I think if I removed the more grating aspects of my personality (you know, that questioning shit that's probably easier left alone and how angry I get about people's thoughtless words), I'd be more pleasant to be around. Granted, I don't let all this shit out to just anyone I run into on the street, but god, I really just can't keep my opinions to myself.