It’s my nineteenth birthday and I’m thinking about how I’ve never kissed a boy, or gotten drunk, or high—which is something that is normalized, but something I have no interest in. My sister says I need to “live a little more” but I wonder why we define living by the breadth of our experiences, instead the depth of them, and the fullness of our moments. But then again, I’m that hypocritical, Type A lunatic who says she will live more but wants to squeeze everything under the sun into one day, while simultaneously pursuing a triple degree as a doctor, lawyer, astrophysicist, writer who plans to save the human race from extinction.
Go figure.
It’s my nineteenth birthday, and I’m thinking about what it means to be nineteen, and whether it is possible to age slower; to have one year of life experiences distributed over the span of two years which would actually make me 8.5, not nineteen and I think 8.5 is an age that suits me much better—don’t you? But apparently that’s not how it works, because 44 year olds would then parade around saying they’re twenty two which makes no sense because their prefrontal cortex is actually fully developed at the age of 44.
But I suppose there are 44 year olds who still make stupid decisions and poor life choices, as if they are still twenty two.
In that case, I’m not only nineteen, but also 8.5. And if I’m 8.5, then I’m also 4.25, and if I’m 4.25 than I’m also 2.125, and if I’m 2.125 then I’m also 1.0625, and if I’m 1.0625 years old than I’m actually 0.51325 years old and x essentially goes to infinity so I’m infinity but not quite infinity.
It’s my nineteenth birthday, but I’m not just nineteen—a prime number that is supposed to measure the range of my experience; my time on this planet, the number of revolutions I have made around the sun—aparently I am something more; something undefined, yet constrained, an atom, and the entire universe.
19, yet infinite, yet also 0.51325 years old.
Whatever that is, whatever that means—- that is what I am
That is how I choose to make sense of
something which can never be
understood.
Spilled Ink 