Sixth Draft
Hey. I am really glad you’re here.
Really, really glad. And very scared. I am feeling…unsure. You see, dear reader, it’s the night before I am supposed to ‘launch’ this thing and I have yet to write, well, this. The thing I am writing now.
I am not a procrastinator. I have had the idea to do this for over four months. I set the due date for my 23rd birthday about three months ago, and have been strategizing, and planning and writing and editing and keeling over my laptop for about two months now.
But also this is very lowkey and thrown together, you know I barely put any effort into it, in case anyone cool asks.
But I haven’t been able to write this.
My friends told me to open with a different piece, one about nuclear destruction. They told me it was my best work yet, but I didn’t want to necessarily start with doom and gloom. (THOUGH WE’LL GET THERE BABY!)
My mother told me to keep it simple, to stop putting so much pressure on myself. “The only one who needs you to keep this due date is you, turn down the pressure.”
underpressurepressurepressureunderpressurebedabadabebeep*
I, to put it bluntly, have failed too much to not abide by this due date. I am too afraid to fail hard again by not at least living up to my rules.
I have written six drafts of this piece. One, starring Marilyn Monroe, another featuring a personal account of my relationship with the Rockefeller Christmas Tree. The third, is a highly fictional, stylized account of three ghosts of birthdays past/present/future visiting me in the night. The fourth is worthless hogwash, the fifth is an ill attempt at this, the sixth is this.
I’ve tried all my usual tricks to get the writing to flow: coffee shop sit downs, earphone blasting, yoga in between every paragraph, freewrites, meditations, inspirations, muses, calling mom, calling my own voicemail and yelling ideas into it. ( I don’t do that last one but wouldn’t that be cool if I did?)
Nothing has worked. I am now screen recording my page so I have to get something down!
So here is something. Here goes nothing. This is a blog, or something or another. And yeah–
*sorry, the song got stuck in my head.It is the night before my 23rd birthday. I never thought to turn 23. 21 was everything to me. Not because I like to drink, no. I don’t have a taste for alcohol, though I love a good time. But because, in America at least, being 21 meant finally being an adult. And I wanted to be grown, desperately.
I was the youngest of three. The baby. The baby girl. Baby B. Princess Cupcake. Jet.
I looked very young, with chubby cheeks and gap teeth until my Sophomore year of high school. All of sudden, as if overnight, I looked 20, at least.
I heard that all the time. “You’re 16? Oh my god, I thought you were 20, at least!”
TwentyAtLeast, was all I wanted. All I hoped for. I wanted to grow up, to be in charge, to be smart, to have authority, to live in a big city and try my hardest at everything.
I wanted a grown up love to love me like a grown up. Painfully, a grown up ended up loving me when I was just 17. This made me feel very grown up, and still makes me feel like a bruised child now. Begging for a kiss to make it better.
I hoped 21 would solidify respect, and dignity. It would establish an authority. I would know who I was, and what I was doing. I’d have a semblance of an idea.
I decided, from very young, to be at least a little bit older, would be for the best.
Surprise, surprise.
I turned 20, then 21, then 22. Birthday after birthday tumbling on top of one another, like a leaning tower of yellow cake, waxy candle residue dripping on to the pastel icing.
And now 23. I didn’t think I would die before 23, no. I just didn’t imagine this age, or who I would be. Maybe a clairvoyant bit of me knew. Knew what 23 would do. Or who 22 would make me. And chose not to let me envision it when I daydreamed of the future.
I don’t recognize the 23 years I’ve lived. Maybe 14 or 15 of them, sure, those are mine, but there are a handful of years that don’t seem to sit right.
A year I cut my hair too close. A year I fell in love with too many people. A year I trusted no one, not even myself. A year I tried so hard, and failed so mightily, I could lock and key it in a sewing drawer, and it would still manage to sneak its way out. Like a haughty Tinkerbell, climbing through the keyhole, to embarrass me with memory in the middle of the night.
And this year. When things changed, so fiercely. The tides shifted so abruptly, the sails ripped to shreds, the wood under foot whining under pressure, the ship mates flown overboard like broken bottles of champagne.
You don’t decide. You don’t think to course correct, you just do. You put your full body weight against the steer, shoulder against the wind, and whisper a prayer to anything.
It is a miracle if you wake up on a sunsinged shore.
And I feel as though I did. It might be a sailor’s daydream, or blissful death, but I think I found sand in my hair, and lips chapped.
I think I am marooned, but left a compass, pointing me in the right direction. Lost, but not hopeless.
A Lost Boy, only sure of his unsureness.
Really convoluted way to say I switched career paths this year.
I am at a loss. I know how to make introductions. I know how to do this.
“Hey my name is Jet Jameson, my pronouns are she/they and I became a vegetarian because I choked on a piece of bacon when I was four.”
“Hey, do you know what this song is? No? Oh, well, my friend said it looked like you had good music taste, so I figured I’d ask!”*
I was never good at finishing things, though. I struggle to finish art projects, and assignments. I don’t finish arguments or TV shows. I leave things to fingers crossed and last-minute miracles, and I hope they end up togethers’.
I didn’t go to my own high school graduation. I worked a shift at the taqueria I was hosting at instead. A few hours into the Saturday brunch shift, after I’d (illegally) poured margaritas for a drag queen and spilled salsa verde all over my shirt, a kid from my class came through the plexiglass doors.
I think he had sat behind me in AP U.S. History. He was the kind of kid to wear braces a little too long, and because of it, he was really sweet to everyone. So everyone, even the popular, republican, assholes, loved him.
“Oh, hey!”
“Hey…”
I can’t remember his name now, but I knew it then. He had curly-q blonde hair, and sharp blue eyes.
“Did you–” his brow wrinkled, his grandmother followed in now, a balloon trailing behind her. “Did you not go to–”
I smiled, “yeah, I didn’t go.”
“Oh.” He shrugged, offering a sympathetic smile.
“It’s just such a long ceremony and uh–I didn’t get the robes in time.”
The robes were sitting in a box under the front seat of my car.
“Right, totally, all those names they have to read.”
“Yeah. Well uh–did you guys have a reservation?”
They did and I sat them. I got their waters. His mother congratulated me. She grabbed my hand, her tennis bracelet jangling as she eagerly lifted my arm above my head.
“Woohoo! You graduated! That’s huge!” Her tanned skin made her teeth insultingly white.
I blushed, cooing ‘thank yous’ as I backed away. Rolling my eyes once I retreated to the safety of the hostess stand.
I knew back then that I was above a high school graduation. I was going to accomplish so much more. I would have so much more to be proud of. Though I had very little to be proud of at that time, I knew–something good would come. Good things come to those who try and try and try.
I don’t know–I don’t know if I know that anymore. I don’t know anything, really.
I know the slice of consolation cake his parents brought me at the hostess stand had blue and orange icing for my school’s colors, and it was delicious, especially when garnished with my saltwater tears.
*those sound much cooler IRL, I promise “Saw a girl crying on the subway today.”
I kicked off my vintage 1989 Air Jordans. Careful not to scuff the leather. I throw my keys onto the hook. Peony greets me, her tail wagging side to side in salutation.
I catch a glance of myself in the mirror, I need to shave. Or invest in beard maintenance products. Laura stumbles in from the kitchen, rubbing her hands against a handcloth. The picture of a perfect woman.
“Hey hun, did you get the eggs?”
Fuck. I bite back my mistake. I groan.
“Get this, I stopped by the bodega, and they were out!”
“Did you now?” Her hand cocks against her hip.
I shake my head in false disbelief. “Crazy I know.”
She turns away, “I’ll get ‘em in the morning.”
“Thank youuuu,” my charm saves me once again. Cause for celebration. I careen towards the bar cart. “You want a scotch?”
She returns, “You saw a girl crying on the subway?”
“Yeah. And it was uh–well it was an interesting one.”
“I was about to say–it’s not like women crying on the subway isn’t a common occurrence.”
“Hell,” I admit, “I even love to shed a few on the G.”
“Well the G will make you tear up. You know, with the delays and all, it’s–yeah, bad train.”
“Heyo!’ God, I love my wife. I sigh, content.
“So,” she presses, “what was so unique about this one?”
“Ah well!” I set my scotch down, hands needed to tell the story. “First off, she had really cool hair, like uh–the front bits were blonde, like white blonde, and the rest of it was like brownie-redish? Do you think that’s–do you get what I’m saying?”
She nods, patronizingly, her eyes blinking slowly.
“Like two little strippies–you know she looked like Anna from Frozen. Ooh! Or like Cruella DeVil.”
Laura lifts the corner of her mouth, her eyes still stuck on the task below her.
“Do you think that’s natural?”
She shakes her head, patronizingly, her eyes widening.
“Bah, well! She was like maybe 20, at least? Or like, well I don’t know she was crying–her face was all scrunched up.” Laura continues to cut up carrots, sliding each row into the simmering fancy red pot I am not allowed to touch.
I continue, “but the thing is she was carrying this like, really elaborate birthday cake.”
“Oh,” she chirps. Good, I’ve got her attention.
“Yeah it was bright red, with really ornamental, y’know swirlies and stuff–and it was half-eaten, and she was just crying and crying. Really sobbing.”
“Was she with anyone?” She puts down the knife.
“No. Nah, by herself. Wearing, like, a ball gown. Or you know–a poofy dress. But short.”
“A poofy dress?” Her eyebrow quirks up. I hate that eyebrow.
“Yeah, Laur, a poofy dress.” I sigh it out, scotch back into hand.
Wonder what’s on TV.
“What?” Now she’s interested. “What did I say?!”
“Nothing! Nothing!” I wave to her, remote in hand. “I just want to get to the football.”
A few moments of silence. She keeps sighing. She thinks I don’t notice, but I do.
“Did you hear what Musk did at Twitter today?” I offer a bit of trivial news, a pacifier.
“You know–” she breaks. Here we go. “A lot of women don’t like their birthdays. Since our society values youth so much. She was probably crying because she feels like the older she gets the less value she has as a person.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“You know exactly what it means.”
“We’re talking about Kathleen again? She is my TA, Laur!”
“Oh FUCK you!” Her knife waving side to side, in salutation. As if waiting to greet its target.
I woke up to an urge to write, on January 1st of this year.
On December 20th of this year, I told myself I would publish that writing.
In the middle of those two dates I made a thousand little unconscious decisions that have now led me to sitting on my kitchen floor, trying to honor a deadline that I’ve conjured up for myself.
My heart has felt heavy, and anxious today, like instead of beating muscle and blood, my chest is an electrical outlet, of hard plastic, and burning sparks.
I didn’t know how to begin this. I think I know how to end it.
I think I know how to end 22.
I’ve decided to never decide. If I don’t plot and plan and pray for perfection, I won’t be so heartbroken when the poem is pitiful or the ship’s deck is left unpolished.
Because even if you get it right, you chart the course, you write the letters, and you cross your chest with the rosary, you can still end up upturned in the water.
You’re lucky to wind up on unfamiliar shores.
You’re lucky to feel the sun of 23.
“It’s just a birthday, B, you lived another year, no pressure.”
I’ve lived another year. Maybe one I will recognize in the future. One where my decisions seem rational, emotional, right.
I’ve lived another year. I feel older, and not yet grown up. I suppose you decide when you grow up. There’ll be a day I wake, and Peter Pan won't wait for me in the window. He too will have decided me a lost cause.
I’ve lived another year. I will keep crying into cake. It’s dramatic, and I love to leave strangers with a story.
I’ve lived another year, and I hope it’s another year of waking up in the sun, born with a new heart, and a muddled mind.
For my birthday, I wish for more indecision and for more sixth drafts.
Thank you for reading. I love you.
