Today is the first day of the rest of my life. As I sit in my beautifully decorated condo, on the 18th floor with a breathtaking view of Buckhead, listening to the latest inspirational and uplifting song in my life “Ingrid Michelson, Keep Breathing” it could be my mood, the new beginning of the month or the fact that I am turning 27 in 21 days that has me feeling nostalgic and a little anxious.
My mind wonders back to the year 1999 and I feel as if my life has skipped to today, leaving my head spinning and my heart heavy. Could it be that I have been through ten years of my life not realizing the life I was living?? The friends, the food, the experiences, the travel, and the ups and downs – these memories do not feel like my own. It also brings me back to the image in my mind as a young, naïve seventeen year old, a caged bird dying to feel the air beneath her wings and the taste of the seed in the neighbor’s feeder. I feel like I am a walking contradiction fusing happy and sad, sane and crazy, self confident and shy, but most of all independent and lonely.
How, you may ask could this be, but in truth it is a gift (I choose to call it that) I was given as I swam in the calming waters of my youth in the backyard of the first and only home I have ever known. Truly believing I was living the best life a child could have while my parents went through a divorce. That is when I also discovered the overwhelming comfort level I had with men and women three times my age. I could mix a cocktail by age seven (well I might add,) sing and dance to “Pencil thin Mustache” and “Satisfaction” and beat all the men at Gin or Pool, whichever was the game of the night. I learned how to divide my time between listening and being the entertainment. I realized I could be anything to everyone, an adaptable chameleon who just wanted to fit in and belong.
Today is the day all of the looking back stops and my eyes are fixed on the road ahead. I am sure I will revisit the good, bad and the ugly from time to time, but I am done wasting time, wasting breath and money on being someone else’s version of myself. Today I choose me. Lacy. The twenty six year old that is looking for completely consuming love and the beauty in each day of this life I have been given.
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