post-birthday meditations

This is what I looked like yesterday, on the morning of my 19th birthday.

I woke up late to the sunshine and crept through the empty house to make myself a cup of tea and open some presents. My present to myself was a quiet morning, just the radio for company and a bit of bossa nova. I gave my eyes wings with eyeliner and put on my favourite dress, the one I bought in Amsterdam with my own hard-earned money. I still feel like an adult only occasionally, half-heartedly, in brief pockets of time.

Turning nineteen is scary because it's so close to twenty. And twenty sounds like far too much. But I do like this steady flow of time, these anchors that make me stop and go, okay. Nineteen. I've been around the sun nineteen times. That's quite something, isn't it?