Let's get out of this town baby we're on fire

I say to myself as I sharpen my pencils and charge up for yet another chapter in this nonsensical but somehow lovely life. Grad school. Masters. 25-year-old me. Wait what.  While it feels like I'm about to take on someone else's life, I know I'm ready for it to be my own.  Saying goodbye to the day-to-day that I know so well has never been easy, but I'm ready for it to be.  I'm ready to toss the miserable drag of melancholy like I'm ready to toss old throw pillows from beach-themed days.  Like last summer's bad Target finds. Like those free plastic cups that pile up in the cabinet and fall out when I open it, begging for attention.  Like the gifted shower gels that sit tiredly under the sink with crowns of dust, too dramatic for my ornery skin.  Tossing out the battered string lights in the bedroom that used to look so cool at night. The jeans that never fit right but stuck around because maybe one day. The pilly tanks. The stuff that's just stuff because that's all it will ever be. Ready to toss it all. Love the good with all I've got and take the bad for what it was. Then fill my suitcase with nothing but great jeans and Light Blue and things that make me better.  And Richmond can love me or hate me or give me a run for my money but at least I'll know where I stand and I'll smell good and the cups in my cabinet won't fall out when I open it. 

A summer of summer memories

The smell of banana sunscreen 

What day is it? We laugh 

Squinty eyes behind shades too cool for their job

Salty beaded upper lip caked with coconut balm

The blanketing heat of well-rested leather seats and the damp reminders of yesterday

Bleached-out strands tangled with adventure, a mermaid top

The crisp volume of the car radio cuts through the haze. 

I LOVE THIS ONE! We shout

A summer of summer memories

For the twenty-something working girl.

Things you learn on work trips

People aren't going to give you what you want.  They're probably not going to give you anything at all.  In fact, they're going to take.  They're going to take from you what they want. Which isn't going to be anything related to what you want, or anything you wanted them to take, much less anything you wanted to give.  You start giving without even knowing, expecting maybe eventually they will give you what you want.  You wait.  And you keep giving.  But soon you get tired of giving and you stop feeling kind or generous or extravagant.  You just feel used.  And so finally you take.  Just once, you take what you want.  Which isn't anything anyone else wanted, and probably not anything anyone wanted to give.  But you wanted it and now you have it. They were never going to give it to you.  You had to take it.

Now you know.