sonogram.

on turning 21.

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i once told a friend that loving a woman feels like you’re being lifted out of a car while she holds you down.

I feel myself lifting these days as if I’m growing lighter, catching onto whatever new gust of feeling finds me.

It’s funny how my senses have been sharpening with each passing day. Right now, I’m fixated on strawberries, vanilla, pink roses, and lilies—what I imagine I’ll taste like on a second or third date. I want these layers on me, bright and soft, ready to be leaned into, memorized.

In a few weeks, I’ll be going home for a couple of months. Before or after that, I’m getting my matrix read, unraveling the threads of who I am and who I could be.

I mentally cheer when I catch sight of claw clips and sweaters as if somehow these little comforts are clues, hints at who I am in this season. It’s been a rough two weeks—there’s no denying that. But here I am, still bouncy, practically glowing. Winter’s always done this to me. I’m even drinking green smoothies, for fuck’s sake.

My birthday is in six days, and I’m thinking of how I’ve never cried once.

I know, it probably sounds overdone by now—but for me, my birthday has always been a profoundly important day. My mother had two daughters before me, and afterward, she had her tubes tied. She and my dad were older by the time I came around; they thought their family was complete. And then, despite it all, I happened.

My mom and I may be contentious at times, but something I’ll always be grateful for is that she never looked at me like a mistake. Even though I’ve built my writing persona around my middle name—golden, bright, and bubbly—my first name is no less significant.

My mother took one look at my round, red, blustering face under the hospital’s bright lights and gave me a Greek name, meaning life. Every day since she’s told me I’m a miracle and reminded me that I’m wanted. That she didn’t know she needed me ‘till right then.

Maybe that’s why I’ve never had a problem being so open and raw about my cavernous desire.

So, birthdays are days synonymous with long, heartfelt texts detailing how much my loved ones, well, love me.

I used to struggle with birthdays—as in the performance of it.

I felt so conflicted scrolling through social media at all the curated celebrations—the gorgeous cakes (I hate icing), lavish decorations, and perfect angles of people tearing up over getting older. The comments were esteemed guests too, empathizing with the deep, communal grief over lost youth.

I was an outsider, lost and stumbling in my relief at managing another year. This also coincided with the years that I was loath to admit that I was sad because this meant I would be entered into what felt like the female-only competition of Miss Best Devastated. (I felt the rules weren’t made for me, a black suburban girl with this hole inside of her. So, I refused to enter. Later, I would understand my grief was only sleeping.)

But I’ve always felt the opposite. I’ve looked forward to each new year as if I’d step out the door to rapturous applause. The crowd would unanimously agree that I did the best a [insert-age-here] could’ve, convinced no one else could have done it quite like me. And behind them, giant helium balloons of my next year float, silver and swollen, waiting for my perfectly white teeth to puncture them like a human needle.

The sky would burst into fireworks of pink, silver, and blue, and my curls would stick to my gloss-streaked lips—caught up in the sticky thighs of my Rocky Road NYX Buttergloss.

To me, getting older is thrilling because I believe that if I fully own my age, I’ll finally have permission to stumble through life the way others do. I’ve been so controlled for as long as I can remember, afraid that anything less is a failure. I have a level of healthy delusion, but I’m responsible with it because I clean up after myself.

But maybe, in six days, when I turn twenty-one, I’ll step into that beautifully chaotic twenties era that everyone else seems to have. I’m not usually “the fun one”—though people close to me might disagree—but when I am, I’m electric, sparking like the longest neon sign in the world.

On the flip side, maybe my rigidity isn’t the worst thing. Maybe it’s not such a sin to keep myself on track. There’s a golden light at the end of my tunnel, something I’ve been chasing since I was six. I know the life I want, and I can confidently say I’m on my way there.

I mean, I’m messy in other ways—the better ways. I can’t contain myself when it comes to loving people. I don’t just love; I love you endlessly. I love you forever, Baby. I’d reach heaven and hold the gates open just to let you in.

Sure, I may not cry over cake, but I cry over everything else. I’ll bluff my way through things I don’t fully understand, which can backfire spectacularly. I spend money on clothes that might turn into regrets in a few months, pretending not to feel the prick of disappointment and the surge of anxiety when I open the package and wonder if I should’ve saved the money.

I’ve built a life from scratch in a completely different country, even though I know I’ll leave it behind in two years. I have a grip on who I am, but it’s loose because I understand my own capacity for change.

Turning twenty changed my life because nineteen was rock bottom. Back then, I once wrote that I always felt like Cecilia Lisbon, eternally climbing those stairs, as if every step pulled me closer to wanting out. But when my teens ended, it was like I’d finally closed the window on that feeling, finally found my way back down.

In the past year, I’ve gravitated toward stories about girls trying to survive. At twenty, I wanted to devour life whole, but now, on the edge of twenty-one, I’m realizing I don’t need to finish it all at once. There’s room to save some for later. I want leftovers.

My teenage years were turbulent enough; I don’t need to throw myself into the “messy twenties” machine, too. I crave structure; I want to hold onto this urge to stay alive. I’ll let myself lift out of that car—but only after checking my surroundings.

“It’s awful when someone wants to see in your shadows trying to find something. Most people must know I’m connecting with my shadows, and it’s ok, but for some people it’s almost like an obsession. And I got caught up in it. A bit like Ophelia or Juliet. It’s like a car crash that people couldn’t help but stop and stare at. Maybe it was Freud who said that 30 percent of what you think about yourself is really just what you’ve heard others say about you. That’s why I’ve been very careful and mindful, especially in recent years. I didn’t want to end up like that car. I didn’t want to become Ophelia. All I ever wanted from her were the flowers.” — LDR.

Maybe I’m not the “fun one”—or maybe I forget that so many see me as the life of the party, even on nights when I feel like the party’s draining the life out of me.

All this to say: I love you all so much. I’m filled with so much love it’s spilling over, and I’m almost sad because of how happy I am. I’m getting older, surrounded by people who lift me up, who keep me kind and steady. That means everything to me.

In the end, I’ll be the star of a life I shaped with my own hands—a life glazed with my blood and tears, marked by diamond bruises from holding on so tightly I almost crushed it.

And I can’t cry over that.

Love you 4ever.

Happy (super early) Birthday to me.

Allyson.

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