Twenty-Two

There is nothing like being twenty-two. But, as much as you want to when days get hard, you will never be twenty-two again. Not because you won’t fall in love, be happy, be reckless, but because you will know better. You will know better than to fall for the local bartender. Or the finance boy who thinks his studio with no bed frame is “entrepreneurial”. You will never again in your life not know what the word boundaries mean. Instead you will know better. You will know that your pleasure should come first. You should come first. You will know that the sun comes up every day. You don’t need to rush. You will know so much more than you did at twenty two and those blissful nights running around the city thinking you were in love. You weren’t in love. You were just color blind.

I wish I could go back and tell you then but that would ruin it. Twenty-two is the only time in your life you can be that naive. It is at twenty-two that you learned true heartbreak. And pain. Those late nights driving over the bridge, hand in hand with some boy that you will now only think about when you taste tequila. So, you avoid tequila. At twenty-two you thought you had figured it all out. You knew nothing. So don’t be wishful for twenty-two. Don't romanticize it more than it already is being young in Brooklyn. 

Turn the lights on. Remember the rats. Remember those who ignored your tear stained cheeks. Don’t romanticize a place that ruined romance for you. Because I promise, those sleepless nights with your best friends will come again. Maybe it will be as you both try to shush your babies to sleep together. Same but different. You will never be twenty-two again. And that is okay.