Three days after my 27th birthday

On February 8, 2006, I wrote the following poem:

The life I was carving out for myself read a lot like a poem

Sounded like a Lisa Loeb song.

It would play itself out in Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment,

iBook et al.

My bathroom would have two doors,

I would sit around in my underwear writing stories and poems and novels.

On Friday nights I’d go dancing, and Saturday mornings I’d wake up to your light snoring.

The life I was carving out for myself would peak 3 days after my 27^th birthday.

It would be a Saturday morning, almost noon,

And I would roll over to find that for the first time in the past 7 years, you woke up first.

I’d find you in the kitchen, eating standing up over the sink, reading the paper.

“Bitte, ein kuss.”

You would smile at me, kiss me, point at the paper and say,

“It’s a jungle out there.”

I was twenty years old, a junior in college at the time.  Being the modern woman that I had convinced myself I was, I was in a not-relationship--you know, the kind where you are in a relationship, but you don't call it a relationship because the word "relationship" is too cliche and oppressive and...whatever?  Anyway, I was in a not-relationship with J at the time.  We did eventually agree to a relationship, sometime in March, only to break up on Palm Sunday a few weeks later.

So, needless to say, the future predicted in this poem did not come to pass.  This Thursday--not Saturday--marks the third day after my 27th birthday.  (Clearly, I did not consult a calendar when making my predictions.)  I will not wake up after a night of dancing--especially because I have to go to work on Thursday--and J will not be standing at my kitchen sink eating and reading the newspaper.

This poem, even then, was written in a minor key; it set my expiration date at 27.  The best moment of your life, my 20-year-old-self told my my future-now-present-self, will be you waking up hungover after a night of partying to a man who for the first time in seven years will exceed your expectations, and the two of you will have a superficial conversation over the kitchen sink about the world that exist beyond you.

Of all the alternate glories I could have imagined for myself: living in a mansion in the south of France, being co-founder of the most successful publishing house in the world, being press secretary of the President of the United States, sitting at the dinner table with a husband and children and a well-balanced meal...of all the alternate glories I could have imagined for myself, hungover and eating over the kitchen sink is the one I penned.

I'm not sure what all of that says about my 20-year-old-self, though in J's defense, I do think this poem has more to say about me-then and him-ever.  Thankfully, both for J and for me, we will both be waking up to a different reality on Thursday.

It would be nice, though, to have a bathroom with two doors.