eighteen
Eighteen is a poorly-drawn line that shoves behind it weekend cartoons, soccer practices, and backseat car rides, drawing back only to reveal an infinitely confusing sliver of what's supposed to be adulthood. I'm spending the last few hours of childhood pressing hot chocolate to my lips, listening to my favorite Broadway musical numbers, and not knowing how I'm supposed to feel sitting in tomorrow's chemistry lecture. I don't know what eighteen feels like yet, but I know how it feels at 17.9. My guess is that 18.0 won't be so far removed.
Eighteen is about looking outward, looking forward. Eighteen is kaleidoscopic; it is Sylvia Plath's green fig tree. Eighteen also straddles the dividing line between childhood and adulthood, the line that tells you to reflect on all the times spent just waiting for something to happen, the inexact liminal spaces of being caught in between something and nothing, or the in-betweenness of not quite knowing.
Eighteen means looking back on when I'd get lost in the supermarket or department store, walking faster and faster through the aisles and clothes hangers, searching and scanning and trying to find something familiar, and having probably never fully outgrown that fear. Sometimes, like right now, it's about feeling fortunate enough to have somebody to run to, however far away, and remembering how lucky I am to have somebody to miss.