I count my age in One-A-Days; by now I should be a hundred.
Or so it feels. I’d have used the number of times the last track of a Josh Groban album circled effortlessly back into the first, but I lost count.
Instead, I shake my bedside bottle to hear how many days I’ve slipped into bed and slurped down chalky vitamins with lukewarm peppermint tea. The sound grows lighter every day, because even though everything is paused, time is still passing.
In the mornings, I poke my forehead, as if a stern fingerpoint can keep the wrinkles away. In evening exercises, I pretend not to feel the twinges in my ankles, my knees, the distant reverberation of pain in my pinned-up femur. I refer to my high school teachers as Mr. and Miss and Mrs. when I’m reminiscing, because calling them Chris and Jessica and Ryan and Christine doesn’t feel right.
I am now older than all of them were, when I met them.
The truth is, that most of the time I still feel like a 17-year-old; the year I got my first job, the year I started to realize how my lifelong friendships would shape up, the year I applied to college. The year I broke that femur of mine. I still feel the hope of the world suddenly blossoming into view, telling me I’m here to teach you anything you want to know.
It’s difficult to negotiate the years of difference between now and then. I want to be young, to have a million choices in front of me once again. At the same time, all of these years have smoothed over the fissures in my bones, and in my heart. So I’ll take them, just like I take my vitamins:
One day at a time.
Next Steps: Drink a glass of water, send that email to your high school (you know the one—today is your deadline no excuses), and settle—there’s still time.