What is age appropriate?
My job seems amateur. My style seems innocent. My career aspirations feel like the maturity should be tangible. The sweat off of my forehead should have equations and in depth emotions melted in it.
25.
Mortgages? Almost finished car payments? Fresh marriages? A fresh French tip manicure and a pure breed dog weaving in and out of my legs at the drop of a dime?
I’ve got a cat that secretly hates me and begs to go outside. He disappears into the wood line outside my run down apartment complex. My vehicle has been in the shop for almost two months, betting on two and a half. My nails do grow! But they break off when they eventually get too long for my throwaway job and maternal duties.
I know comparison is suicide, but holy shit do I feel left behind. Mostly by myself. Like future me keeps trying to wake me up but past me is at my feet, thanking me for surviving and thriving 75% of the time. Both can exist at the same time. Frankly, I love duality but hate this garbage.
Speaking of duality, I’m grateful for the yin and yang and how effortlessly (not willingly sometimes, mind you) it comes to me. The good and the bad and how they go hand and hand.
However, I gnaw at the bad. I want that shit as minuscule as it can get. Because if it starts to cover the good, I would be damned. There’s very few things that would damn me. I nary say them because I forbid them from ever coming true.
The only competition is me. Boy am I losing. I feel like a failure 5/7 days of the week lately.
My failure will pass. Not before making its grand exit. Like a freight train most likely.
Or maybe the exit will be more subtle.
I’ll just work on winning, or sort of winning. I can compare the winning to mining. I’m also digging. I’m sifting through the dirt. The vibes are sensational. Not groundbreaking however.
Pedro Pascal (shush) places his hand on his own chest to feel his heart. To ground himself on red carpets.
In a crowd full of people, in small talk between customers, in goodbyes I am never prepared for, I mime that action.
He might not be the first to do so or the last. But I love shouting out Latino people. Pur.
My feet are one with the ground. My bare feet. With the rough nail polish and the crud stuck on the bottom from my floors that I know go too long between sweeps.
I participate in grounding all the time in more ways than one.
To remind myself that I am here.
And I am doing just fine.
[Image Description: To the left is about a week ago, and to the right was two nights ago. I cut the ends off of my eyebrows and bleached my two front pieces. Subtle change but enough to give me a different look. I don’t think I’ll ever get too old to alter my look in some capacity. One of my favorite memories is my mama walking through the door of my home with a multi-layered mostly black but highlighted new hairdo. Her smile. I remember how happy she looked. She was beautiful, and deserved to feel more beautiful throughout her short lifetime. I believe my confidence is embedded into my soul. I share the confidence that I naturally have and the one given to me that should have been my mother’s, my older brother’s and my cousin Derek’s. All 3 deserved longer lives and I will always stand by that. I own the rights to these photos as I am the photographer and the subject. I love you. Get some sleep.]