I wrote this piece nearly five years ago, in late summer 2016 just before my twentieth birthday. Some things have changed since then, some not—I’m no longer planning a wedding, but I still wonder how I’m old enough to be an adult (never mind that in a mere five zipping years I will be thirty). Anyway, I wanted to share this piece now because it’s comforting for me to see the growth I’ve experienced since then—most of which, like anything worthwhile, occurred gradually and unconsciously. I hope it inspires you to look back on yourself five years ago and feel proud of how far you’ve come.

I eat a peach plucked freshly from the tree just outside the living room. The flesh is tender as I bite into it and I lean over the sink while the juice runs down my chin. My favorite excerpt from Annie Dillard runs in a loop: “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” When I am in Colorado, I spend my days sleeping in, slowly doing yoga, reading, planning a wedding, driving down the winding roads to get coffee in the afternoon, spending tender evenings with my love as summer transitions to autumn. I keep thinking I should be doing more with my time and then the day is over. 

Some evenings when Jacob comes home from work I’m frustrated for reasons I cannot name. The other day was particularly dreary and he handed me the bottle of vitamin D capsules and said they would help. They did, or maybe it was a placebo effect, or maybe it was him, or maybe it was all three combined. What is it about love that makes us so damn greedy? Greedy not for another helping of food, or five more minutes of sleep in the morning, but greedy for something as simple as being in the same room as the object of your affections. I thought I was an introvert before I fell in love, and maybe I still am, but now instead of alone time I crave him. 

I am almost in my twenties. Sometimes it feels I have lived so much longer than that, and other times I wonder how I am possibly old enough to be meal planning and making my own dentist appointments, much less getting married. We all choose our paths in life, or maybe they are chosen for us, or maybe a little bit of both.