Legally Drinking

About a month ago, I found a corner in the library where it felt like fewer people had drowned, and claimed it for 26 hours. I watched the sun trickle yellow into morning's grey and just as meekly trickle out again. I watched egg mcmuffins turn into sushi lunches turn into quesadillas and salsa. I consumed book after book, drew conclusion after conclusion, and eventually, watched a month flit by.

It's December now. I'm 21, and still the supporting character of my own life. This time around, though, I'm not drinking to forget. This time around it's just me and my own two feet and that's enough. I'm only keeping the good friends and I'm only keeping the parent who cared and for the first time, I feel wholly content. You see, there's this thing that I've discovered over the past month, at the center of all things, that makes me want to remember every moment that I'm living. Perhaps it's hope. Perhaps it's mortality. Perhaps it's understanding that every song has an inside joke and I don't want to wait until the end to get the point of it all.

As I was sitting on the subway the other day, the man next to me who was holding a giant bag of something green and prickly gleefully offered me a sprinkle of mistletoe. I, the wary, declined. Refusing to accept defeat, he prod at my hand and said "cheer up...this is the kiss that smiles are made out of". He didn't know how many kisses I had given that night. He didn't know that they didn't add up to a smile. I rubbed the needles between my thumb and index finger and inhaled the comforts of almost pine. Maybe I should stop seeing the boys who never love. I stretched out my arms towards an advertisement about human evolution. The train rocked. It tastes like winter.

I tell them not to fall in love with me. They listen. This isn't like the movies.

I watch my martini refill with petron, tangueray, jameson and sangria. I feel my blood bubble warmer than resentment can, and find that soothing. He didn't call this year. You know. The man I don't call father. But everyone else did.

This is my reality, and I'm happier than I've ever been.