by MJ Sullivan

At this time in the world, this does not feel like the time for the celebration of the 23rd time I’ve revolved around the sun. I was originally looking forward to finally having a birthday I could celebrate: not amidst finals, school, or personal crisis (The universe had other plans). On top of the state of the world, I also personally don’t feel like I’m ready to or should be allowed to be turning 23. In my mind, at 23 you should have things a little bit more settled than I feel I do. However, with the help of some loved ones, I’ve started realizing that I don’t have to have to have it “all figured out” right now, and that I might have accomplished more than I can see or feel. In light of this, here are 23 things I’ve learned, or figured out, in my 23 years on this Earth.

1. You don’t owe anyone anything. Ever. Period.

2. As long as you are safe to do so, be and present yourself as authentically as you can. The amount of emotional and mental freedom you feel when you can truly be yourself is nirvana.

3. Dark chocolate is the supreme chocolate, and black coffee is the ruler of coffee. If it’s the good quality stuff, it doesn’t need sugar or milk to be great.

4. You’re not weird for liking or being interested in the things you like. There are like-minded people out there in the world just waiting for you to discover them who will not just tolerate you, but celebrate you for it. 

5. Sometimes, you have to let go of things or people that are causing you more harm than good. It might take you a while to notice, realize, or accept, but flowers can’t grow in poisoned soil. Cut out anything in your life that is causing you angst or stopping you from growing.

6. You do need sleep and food! Providing your body with the proper amount of energy to function properly actually works. The body craves equilibrium. Everyone’s balance is different, and finding yours may take some time, but it’s worth the time and effort you might put in to find it.

7. The present moment is always going to be “the in-between”. I have had, and still do have, a hard time not idealizing the past or wishing for the future to happen faster; so much so that I forget to enjoy the present until it is the past. Take the time to enjoy the seemingly small moments of your present situation, because someday, you will cherish them.

8. Your entire life is not just middle and high school. Your entire life is not just your hometown, or the first 18 years of your life. When you’re in a place where not everyone gets you, it’s very hard to see that life gets better. The world is so much bigger than one town and has so many people and opportunities. You’re not defined by where you come from but how you progress from it.

9. Everyone can be an asshole. Doesn’t matter age, race, sexuality, gender, religion, etc. It takes all kinds.

10. Nobody in the world is a background character. Every single person you run into has a life: a family, friends, a passion, a career, a personality, and feelings. Your bodega man, your coworker, the person next to you in traffic, your sibling. Everyone comes from such a different background that you will never fully know because you haven’t lived it. Keep this in mind when interacting with people.

11. Take care of the aftercare of your piercings, tattoos, scars, or surgeries. They are alterations to your body and they deserved to be treated with care! Plus, you WILL regret not taking care of them, aesthetically and/or pain-wise.

12. Felt hangers are so much fucking better than plastic ones. They keep every piece of clothing on the hanger and off the floor. Do yourself a favor and invest in some.

13. Education is important, but there are many ways to learn besides through institutionalized education. You are constantly a student of life, and never have to cease your learning due to lack of funding or skill. Go learn guitar from a YouTube tutorial, ask a friend to teach you to drive stick, teach yourself how to paint. The world is your oyster if you’re willing to put in the time and passion.

14. Whatever you’re feeling, there is a song out there to express it.

15. There is almost never a reason to not use a reusable water bottle. Go buy a good one and decrease your carbon footprint.

16. You are not your trauma. You are not your mental illness. These things can manifest to be a huge part of your life or identify, but you do not have to let it become you. These things are a part of you and your life, but you are worth so much more than something that happened to or is happening to you. 

17. Getting better is always worth it. Trust me. Asking for help is always worth it. Trust me.

18. Friends can become your family. Surrounding yourself with supportive, amazing people makes life so much better.

19. Black looks good on everyone.

20. Never, NEVER wait to buy these things: plunger, krazy glue, glasses repair kit, sewing materials, light bulbs, flashlights, toilet paper, toothpaste, charger. By the time you need them, it’ll be too late. Thank me later.

21. It’s never too late or too dumb for you to start something you’re passionate about or interested in. If you want to do something, just fucking do it. What other people think or if “it’s good or not” literally has no bearing on the fact that it makes you happy or it’s fun. Spend more time thinking about your happiness and amusement rather than people’s supposed opinions about you.

22. Always go. If someone asks you to a concert, go. If someone asks you to go to a bar at 1am, go. If you’re invited to a poem reading at a bookstore, go (as long as you are comfortable of course).

23. Although, I’ve learned so much more in my life, I’ll leave you with this: The only constant is change. You can take this in a light way, or a dark way. What’s happening to you right now is not going to be that way forever, but also what’s happening to you right now is not going to be that way forever. Enjoy your happy moments while they are happening, and know that in your worst times, the skies will clear eventually and the sun will peak if not fully shine through.

24. Bonus: Don’t shave your fucking head without thinking about the fact that you have to grow it out, and that it’s gonna look weird sometimes and have its phases. Take it from me.

Happy Birthday to me. Stay safe, stay healthy, stay inside folks.

A stream of consciousness~

The 6 year old “new” car smells of peppermint, as the familiar crack of my mother’s teeth on a mento is followed by the succeeding noise of the paper tube shuffling to let one into my father’s palm.

The punk sounds of my music enter my left ear, while the same classic rock my dad has been listening to for years enters my right. My mom fiddles with the radio to keep him up with the times and lands on the currently popular Lizzo song, as she promptly follows the orders of the lyrics by flipping her hair and checking her nails, and of course, “feeling good as hell.”

My headphones lie cockeyed on my head as I can feel the dull pain of my freshly pierced right ear against the pushed back piece of plastic. My ears ingesting two different things, my eyes gobbling up pages and pages of a book I hated but now am ravenously consuming before my book club meeting on Sunday; out of requirement and because the main character reminds me of my best friend who I miss.

Leaving my brother in state 1 to pack up his main life in a matter of a couple of days, saying goodbye to some people I know he loves very much and won’t see for a while, passing through state 2 where two of my close friends and past roommates live, entering state 3 where I have lived for all almost 23 years of my life. It’s grey out, the only color I can spot as I look up is the potent cerulean blue of the rest stop signs that perfectly match the cover of the book in my lap. When I was little I thought rest stops only existed in other states, because we never needed to visit one on Long Island because we lived there. I thought a lot of things when I was little. I’m realizing a lot of things recently, some good, some funny, some ridiculous. I often express them out loud, and when people don’t identify, it just solidifies my growing thought that everyone has such a unique and ever changing perception of the world.

My mother changes the radio station from an Ariana Grande song to a channel with commercials. It takes my father 30 seconds to realize, as his main focus is and should be on the road. He points out a horse on the fast passing farmland next to us, and I can feel my lips pull apart in a slight smile. My eyes well up as I watch the skinny bare trees wiz past, knowing that I’ll never be in this exact moment again. But then again, that’s the beauty of it, isn’t it?

You’d think people think about the big accomplishments in their lives as their greatest moments. I don’t discount or invalidate that, but there are moments I hold really near and dear to my heart I don’t think everyone would take a second glance at. Sometimes I can feel the wind whipping through my fingers, praying my rings wouldn’t fall off, rain water dripping onto my palm, looking at the cliffs of the Hawaiian landscape. Sometimes I think about the way the skin next to my brother’s eyes crinkle up when he laughs with his whole body instead of just his nose, at something no one else ever would think would merit that, but to him it does. Sometimes I think about my father reading on the living room couch, kindly petting the dog he didn’t want, who has nudged himself so close he might as well be sitting on his lap, and I wonder what stories are unfolding in his head from the words on the page. Sometimes when my mother leaves me a cup of half finished coffee, I think about being wrapped up in our old beige knitted blanket, at 6am, on the old armchair in my parents bedroom, when she would give me a cup of 1 tbsp coffee, 4 tbsp creamer, and I would cherish every drop of her generosity to allow a mere child such a delicacy. Sometimes I think about a moment of clarity I had while my hair was free in the wind of an Oregon highway, thousands of pine trees for the eyes to witness with wonder, thinking if there were that many pine trees there were so many other ways my life could be from how it is now. 

Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro” blares in my right brain, and Simple Mind’s “Don’t You” lightly tugs on my left brain’s nostalgia. I put down my tiny lettered phone to pick up my large type book. I think about one of my best friend’s sunny day working remotely in Florida, compared to my grey, many miles day in Massachusetts. I find sometimes, that I long for the opposite of what I currently have. As I push back my chin length hair that annoyingly hangs in my face, I think that although life has a lot of stark contrasts, there are a lot of in betweens. I’m trying to learn to appreciate how long my hair has gotten, from nothing to something, and while it’s great to think about how long it will get, I’m learning to try to love it in the middle. Life would be really really sad if you were only in love with the blacks and the whites, because more often than not, you’re landed somewhere on the grey spectrum. I’m finding that the greys are pretty great too.

-18:13, 3/19/20, in the back of my parents Mazda CX-5, on Merritt Parkway South, in Rye Brook, CT.