All The Things That Scare Me About Growing Up

Marrying my job. Marrying a job that belongs to someone else.

Treading water through my twenties. Just exerting all this energy to stay afloat. Never moving forward or back. Just existing right above the surface.

Marrying someone who wears a suit every day and only believes in stability and carefully crafted logic. Never getting a dog with him because he says pets are a waste of money. Never pursuing my creative dreams because he says a roof over our head is more important than pipe dreams. Recapping my day-to-day at a job that I hate to him over a prepackaged ingredient cook-it-yourself dinner with a bottle of Trader Joe’s wine that I tolerate while he nods in between checking his phone.

Getting excited when I have an offer for another job that I’ll for sure grow to hate. Never being able to express my hatred because a roof over my head has suddenly become more important to me than writing.

Flavorless bitter coffee. Never drinking it with cream and sugar or anything that ends with “ccino.” Eliminating pleasures for practicality. Eliminating convenience for survival. Only living for survival.

Going to bed before 10 p.m. because I’m always so tired. I’m already so tired. Getting upset with friends who call me at 9:45 p.m. on a Friday because I’m already asleep.

Realizing it’s not just a phase.

Being asleep for the rest of my life.

Actively choosing unhappiness because it’s the path I’ve been told to take. Holding complacency between both hands and saying, “This will do.” Listening to people even more miserable than me on whether or not the work I produce is on par.

Looking back when I’m about to go and wondering what would have happened had I been just a little bit braver.

Asking myself if being careful got in the way of letting myself live.