The Courage & Composure of Nineteen

It takes courage to be nineteen. 

I’m experiencing trailers of what my adulthood could feel like. 

I am so drawn to that independence. I’m blowing so gently on that candle, enough for it to continue burning and soft enough for it to wait for my becoming. 

The attributes I have both built and acquired have met the person I once was. 

Being home just does that to you. 

I’m at an age where a couple of weeks could mean nothing or absolutely everything. 

I’m malleable, soft yet enduring. I’m clay before it is placed in a kiln. I’m something, someone, wanting to be anything..

I’ve left the security of my bedroom behind. Now I find myself within the confines of communal bathrooms, sticking posters on bare walls, and rewatching videos of lakeside nights lit by moonlight, and the background music of my laughter as my cousins stack floaties and attempt to leap across a raft.  

Swatting bugs which buzz towards my porch side light like embers rising from campfire smoke, or returning to the blueberry fields, getting my lavender latte and sitting at the Tracy library garden, the many tiny traditions of my life. 

My summer homecoming. And I return home, but my emotional identity is never complete in its making. 

I am too old to stay within the fortification of my home, yet too young to be alone. I have left high school but only begun college.

I want to project an image of confidence, when in reality I am attempting composure within this realm of chaos. 

I’m not feeling anxious about these growing pains. I just feel the pain. I don’t fall into it. 

Who said nineteen had to be masterful.

My August 15 column at the InterTown.

The last week for me in New London. I’ve been completing my summer traditions.

A walk along the bog, a blueberry muffin and Tracy library garden, long lazy days on the raft with my cousins as we let ourselves be blanketed by the sun, and of course what would a summer be without deep thought.

I never realized how many traditions I had until I felt an absence when one of them had not been completed. I’ve always loved picking some of the wild berries.

My cousins and I would try and see which bushes had the bluest most beautiful blueberries. This year, we just walked along the short fuzzy trees at the bog.

“Talia keep walking” they all said, as I attempted to sweep my hand through the berry trees.

What happens when childhood traditions become memories?

Completing traditions a bit differently. Almost as if they must be done, and not held on to.

What a beautiful thought. There is more joy to come. 

Smiles & Love,

Talia