theres a lot of things i haven't done, & i know i'm young, but the same way that even the largest funnel leads to a narrow point, i can feel the path i've chosen eliminating many of those things from my realm of possibility. sometimes part of me feels 30 already. part of me has sunk my teeth into this bulky, uncertain idea of being an adult without even the slightest sentimental glance back at my adolescence. and truthfully, it's this part of me that has parted with my verbose tendencies, that considers long, unwieldy paragraphs a remnant of my youth. at 17, writing was a reflex, and now, somehow, the same sentences that once flowed from my fingertips need to be coerced out one phrase at a time. perhaps it's just rust, as my prose can still occasionally pick up speed. but that same part of me fears that it's not, that it might be that in order for me to write things that make sense, i need to live a life of discontent - and the absence of this simply means that i have much less to say at the end of the day.

and its not that i'm 100% happy, because it's more complicated than that. rather, i'm comfortable - comfortable in the same pair of orange sweatpants that i slip my sore legs into every night, comfortable with the tedious trials of my job and the fact that almost a year of the same thing can be simultaneously satisfying & frustrating, comfortable with my routine self-improvement and the reassuring way that eventually i lapse just enough to invigorate my motivation to be a better teacher, lover, human being. daily, i'm asked to spend the majority of my waking hours denying that i have wants and needs of my own, convincing myself that my purest purpose is simply to serve others, eager to answer their questions, soothe their tempers. and i'm good at it. i've even convinced myself that my wants aren't all that different from theirs, that i can only be happy when i've made them feel special and quelled their fears.

still, by dismissal, i want little more than thirty minutes to pound the pavement followed by an evening of snuggling through unbearably bad reality tv. and as much as i want to believe my humble aspirations are a repercussion of my job, i'm afraid that they could be repercussions of ANY full-time job, repercussions of getting closer to 30 and knowing who you love and having just enough faith in yourself that the sort of worries that used to get you worked into a fit of anxiety rarely flare up anymore. so, perhaps i'm not the writer i used to be, perhaps my pen falls flat upon the page, perhaps those vibrant, tortured days are behind me now, perhaps this too is just another stage. all i know is that i try each day until the trying's fresh out of me, and on occasion, this alone is enough for that elusive idea of happiness to feel like something raw and tangible, even like something definitively possible.