At 17, I had no vision for my future – I remember leaving my hometown – and on my last week, outside my favorite coffee shop, there I burned a tin full of all the letters from my first relationship. My friends were there with me. We smoked Parliament’s. I drank a flavored Italian soda. At that time, this felt symbolic for ‘moving forward no matter what.’
Today, I don’t keep a tin full of letters, nor a device full of texts (they auto purge), but rather I have memories from twenty five hundred days fading in my head. I spent these last months reliving, processing, and journaling about the years between St Louis and now; how I remember them in the present.
As a way to close this season, here’s a few selects.