the year i become a mother

reflections on the last decade

Today is my birthday, so I want to share something I’ve been working on as a thank you to everyone who upgraded their subscription after my last post. If you didn’t see the post, I’m going out on submission with my memoir this fall and am trying to increase my paid subscriber count to impress editors (so silly, but how the world works). I’ve made subscriptions $20/year ($1.60 a month!). If you love this newsletter, would you consider upgrading?

xx

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24 is teaching gym classes because a bald man with thick biceps says I have potential and so I learn to do burpees while wearing a mic. But I want to be a writer, I tell a friend, and so he gets me a job in marketing. I am 24, yet I feel like my entire life has already happened: marriage, house, career. The pace keeps me up at night, listening for the train. At the end of winter I tell A. we have to leave. But where? he asks. Anywhere but here. 

25 is paper lanterns floating above a bridge and churning river water. I watch the light and my wish disappear into the dark, then drink too much sangria in the jungle. When I puke red at dawn, I tell myself to grow up, which I do, but only because I learn to laugh again. Light follows me, or maybe I follow it: headlamps in the Andes, strips of moonlight on sand, purple strobes at a midnight concert in another language. We travel for eleven months until home isn’t a word but a longing. Are you ready to go back? A. asks. No but yes.  

26 is French music and cigarette smoke, chopped hair and blonde highlights. It’s a studio apartment in Denver and counting tips. It’s also depression, dirty snow, and drawn-out conversations about what comes next. What are we doing? I whisper every night in bed. We can’t afford Denver rent, so we move into my parents’ basement. I find a desk on Craigslist, open my laptop, and begin to write. It is winter for an entire year.