The day after my eighteenth birthday I woke up feeling unquestionably connected to my own skin and mind. I was one entity, a rare and comforting sensation.
Sam bought me soft pretzel bites that day. He filled up my bicycle tires as our shadows stretched out along illuminated golden pavement. We embarked, squeezing through the space between the gate to my neighborhood and clusters of droopy ornamental grass; trusting our increasingly wobbly intuitions wholeheartedly.
The world unselfishly unfolded its beauty before my eyes. I saw tree branches wiggle into the sky and canopies of sunlit Spanish moss drape lazily over oak limbs. I watched blushing pink thunderheads roll into themselves over a limitless horizon, reveling in how the sand felt between my toes and how soft Sam's skin looked in the rosy light. Music from restaurant patios we biked past wrapped their notes and rhythms around me. Black rubber met warm pavement beneath me but all I could think of was how I felt like I was gliding through the air.
As night fell we pumped home full of wonder, bright lights whizzing past us in the creeping darkness.
There is nothing quite as comfortable and freeing as coming home to an empty house. When we got there I watched ripples dance across the surface of the swimming pool in my yard. I put on the Beatles and Sam and I climbed into my bed, basking in the emotional opulence of each other's company. Sam ate the cherry chunks out of my pint of Cherry Garcia because he knows I'm weirded out by the texture of fruit chunks. I cried and spilled my heart to him while we listened to bossa nova.
After he peppered me with an unnecessary (but welcomed) number of goodbye kisses and drove home, I laid in the darkness and read Desirada over and over, thinking about what it means to inhabit my body.
Eighteen has only gotten better from there.
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