lemonade

My hairdresser told me she knew someone who had recently died of brain cancer. “So young,” she said. “34 years old only.”

That’s my age, I told her.

“1988,” she said.

Yes. 1988.

*

For reasons unknown to my technology-addled self, the bookmarks on my phone are synced to my 2012 life, specifically capturing the time between dropping out of grad school and finding full-time work.

There’s a whole folder dedicated to job listings — 13 pages, none of them functional now. There’s another folder dedicated to writing — 29 pages of submission guidelines for magazines, journals, anthologies, and a lone Thought Catalog essay. I google the author’s name. Content strategist and creative director splashes across her homepage. Her portfolio indicates she stopped writing essays in 2013. 

If this is a sign from the universe, I don’t think it’s a good one.

*

Someone I interviewed for work told me how she hopes her children will grow up knowing what they want. She said, I ask all my interns this, “Do you know how to dance in your work? What made you dance during your FYP?”

I nodded politely. I wanted to show her I understood the importance of this.  

I am 19, 23, 30. I cannot answer the question.

*

I turn 35 in 14 days. Help.