Make the most of my 20's

First Christmas in Geronimo. First one-night stand as a belated birthday present to myself. Involved a shower and the phrase “it almost worked.” Played in midnight snow on campus. Saw Bill Clinton speak. Shook his hand. Had a breast grazed. Won an award for a poem I submitted to the magazine. Had an epic Easter Break in Greenville. Calzone. Bacon wrapped asparagus. Juice. Vodka. Beer. Goodwill. Dogpark. Easter dinner off nice plates and a jellybean decorated cake. Dealt with the death of my cat I’d had since age seven. Applied to study abroad in Italy. Got a new kitten in Fayetteville on a whim and kept him in my dorm until I drove back home with my dad. Watched my mother graduate. Watched Last Year at Marienbad. Made watermelon limeade. Made peanut butter brownies. Signed up for OKCupid. Went on a date with an attractive teacher, slept with him, and neither of us called again. Went on a date with an overweight pessimist and skillfully avoided further contact. Went to 4th of July at Hermann Park. Explored Discovery Green. Worked for souvenir money. Bought a bouquet of irises on a whim and gave them to my mother. Spent the night in a hotel room in my own hometown. More museum visits. Started photographing strangers. Met up with Gina for baklava at Biba’s. Felt the distance. Drank a fifth of Southern Comfort and ended up crying in the shower then dialing my ex in my room with all the lights off. He drove up to see me but by the time he got here I was passed out. Left for Munich. Italy. Pound’s castle, the vineyards. The market on Thursdays. Tirolo. Verona. Fell in love. Vinschgau. Firenze. Went to the coast with him: Sorrento. Capri. Pompeii. Meta. Back to Firenze. Pisa. Venezia, rain the whole time. Roma. The Vatican. My first real snow in Tirolo—four inches of it. Munich. Greenville. Houston, back in time for birthday sushi.

First Christmas with a friend instead of with family. Spent New Year’s in Wimberley and started it with a resolution to take a photo a day. Learned what all the buttons on my camera did. Broke up with the boy. Went on walks to Subway with Greg when it was too cold to do it. Walked through the woods afterward. Got back together with the boy, secretly. Went with a group of girls to the local dollar theater in town to see an awful movie. Went to see Nikki Giovanni read at UNCP. Submitted poems to the school literary magazine thinking I’d never be published. Got published. Broke up with the boy. Spent Spring Break alone with Thin Mints and fresh berries and whipping cream. Got food poisoning from the whipping cream in an empty dorm. Hung out in Orange on St. Patrick’s day as a sober observer and still had fun. Opened my window to April snow. Ate dinner outside every night when the weather was right. Fed the turtles. Bought a perfect gift for the boy in an attempt to get him back. Margaritas for Easter break. Ganza in April. More alcohol than ever before. Slept with a rebound guy who wrote a song about me. Met up with a friend at the ATL airport for dinner before I took off for home. Art Car Parade with George Clinton as marshal. Swimming at Gina’s apartment. Started taking self-portraits. Explored downtown. Great food. Breakfast Klub, finally. Star Pizza, 59 Diner, Auntie Chang’s. Rain every day after noon. Spent weeks in Wimberley watching the garden bloom and photographing everything. Fine Arts museum a million times. Bubble tea. Swam at Joe and Charlotte’s saltwater pool. Back to school. Split a pizza with Mason. Moved in with the roommate. Epic promiscuity; three weekends, three different men. The ex, the rebound, and the new boy who had a girlfriend. Whitewater rafting and sore arms the next day. Tried to stay awake for the lunar eclipse but got bored and went to bed. Bought a Polaroid camera. Bonded with Mason in the bathroom at Champ’s. Found out my godmother had cancer. Black Mountain writers’ retreat. Continued a tradition by taking a pregnancy test. Went home to say goodbye. Somber Thanksgiving at Black Eyed Pea with dad. Picked up at the airport by Buddy the Elf. Dinner with class at Korean restaurant, ice cream with Heffernan after. Hung out in Greenville with Mason, got close enough to start calling her Margaret. Spent my birthday getting sushi and cake from the Dessert Gallery.

Dyed my hair red. Took stupid pictures at Wal-Mart. Played dress up with my best friend. Made a pilgrimage to my favorite music store before it closed. First college boyfriend. First college break-up. First insane college on-again, off-again relationship. Hung out late at night with lots and lots of people. Did anyone ever sleep freshman year? Made a slip and slide with dish washing soap and water in our dorm hallway while our RA was out of town. We played for awhile, cleaned it up, all crammed into the shower at the same time, and never got caught. Although we did get Dawn in places it probably shouldn’t have been. Danced in the rain to avoid studying for finals. Drove cross-country with my mom and a car packed so full of my stuff it was about to explode. Attended a family birthday bash that lasted two days without stop. There weren’t enough beds for everyone, so no one went to sleep. Did absolutely nothing all summer except hang out with friends and read. Went to see fireworks at Hermann Park and Nanci Griffith at Anderson Fair. Went back to school, dabbled in drinking and did scandalous things, got sick, came back home for a semester. Made the most of it. Explored my city, ate lots of dessert, and still managed to lose ten pounds. Spent my birthday eating Indian food, seeing Handel’s Messiah for my birthday, and drinking legally at The Harp. For free.

“Make all the haste you can to live, my friends…” he said. “God forbid you should sacrifice the present for the future! There is youth, health, fire in the present; the future is smoke and deception! As soon as you are twenty begin to live.”