thoughts from a paddock (two weeks before turning twenty-nine)

It’s pretty fucking cold.

The wind bites with teeth you’d never expect it to have. To save yourself from its nips you’re dressed like a marshmallow, sleeve mode activated with twenty to thirty other marshmallows hiding from the bites.

It’s been a pretty rough year.

The thought comes and goes as you move closer to the end of another rotation, finally earning money after a rough redundancy, in an industry that you’re still not convinced on but it’s new. The pay’s good, the days are long, and you’ve had more conversations about guns than you ever thought you would.

You’re excited about celebrating with chosen family but still have the anxieties of whether or not to invite people you would have a year before. Then you remember the conversation you had with a friend a couple days ago about the same thing and she rightly pointed out the if you’re thinking about it, it’s probably a sign.

You don’t know if you believe in signs anymore, or if you look out for them less as you don’t think there’s anyone out there lighting bushes for you.

The last time you wrote before turning an age it was riddled with signs of disassociation. It’s odd now, almost 8 years later, to not have that. The power of medication and learning, and only slightly panicking at that being 8 years ago.

You keep thinking about growing older and being an older woman and if you need a statement, a go-to, a comfort of design that makes you feel put-together.

It will probably be lipstick. But as said before, it’s pretty fucking cold and your lips are chapped.