I would age.

"I am not being rude when I ask you this, but have you started smoking?" That was my aunt, in the Trader Joe's check out line. She loved coming to the city to shop at the Trader Joe's. Here third husband owned an eclectic house further down1-70 in the mountains. She had tight curly grey hair, smelled like incense and wore patterned scarfs in odd configurations.

"No, why do you ask this?" I glance at the checkout clerk for validation.

Later in the bathroom of the coffee shop I would stare intently in the mirror and trace the thin crease that angled from noise to mouth. I'd pat beneath my right eye. Was it puffier? My mom had made comments too. She asked me if I was getting enough sleep. Plenty. I snoozed up 2 hours a day. Was I working too much? No-- I can't tell you the amount of breaks I took or the length of them. Sometime the breaks were long enough for me to walk to my favorite pastry and coffee shop, past frozen commuters and the gargoyle baristas where I would select from the glass case behind the counter my favorite snack and eat it quietly sprawled on their guest sofa. Once I even ate it my head resting on the lap of some business fellow.

I realized all my delusion right there! Everything that was meant to give me life was taking it away. Every act of self-preservation was cellular suicide. I couldn't count the hours, the years I had taken from myself. I felt sick. I searched for gray hairs and knew I couldn't cry because my aunt would wonder. She was already wondering about why I was in the bathroom for so long I am sure. And then a second panic- what am I doing wasting time in the bathroom. I should be there talking to my aunt. I should text my brother. I should book a flight. My hear was beating and I wanted so desperately to make up for time I somehow felt I lost but there I was frozen in front of the mirror.

1. I began writing in a spiral notebook, the same one that I designed blocky outfits in and drew cats and dogs. I don't remember my age but guessing by the artistry it was 20 years ago. I would have been five and feral looking and unattended and artistic- but in that nonsensical 5 year old way. I would describe one of those Lisa Frank monstrosities of a little girl notebook but luckily for you were were poor and the book was my cousins hand-me-down from high school math. Barely used due to chronic absenteeism, but I will say the first two days my cousin seemed to be on a drastically different trajectory a drop out. Perfectly copied down are his fives and Xs and equal signs.

2. Writing gave me back my perception. The world can gas-light you at times but to have the written word to root a person in my reality. Writing is sanity which is why I will never fully understand the stereotypes we apply to it. Its not all Faulkner for christ sake! I think writing is people trying to claim their story and make sense of their world. It is ordering and reclamation. It tells you that you were not wrong all that time another person, or structure, or system made you to feel that way.

3. My ultimate writing goal is to understand this thing -that seems sometimes to just happen like weird magic. I hope to become more finely tuned at teaching writing so that I can instruct others on how to best communicate their story.