Seventeen and ten

It’s about two hours after Fajr. The sun isn’t fully out, and the weather is just the right temperature for drifting back to sleep.

I finally hit two digits in my journal entries. In case I didn’t tell you I got myself a journal as a birthday gift. I wanted to fill it with all the exciting things I’d do before turning eighteen. I hit eleven entries today. I forgot to congratulate myself. It’s taken longer than it should have, because patience isn’t one of my strongest suits.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about when I was younger. How I’d fill notebooks with stories about imaginary animal kingdoms, cruel village chiefs, or just life. How I used to draw so much on my schoolbooks that barely any space was left on the pages.

I miss playing until my lungs gave out before my legs did. And I miss laughing so hard it hurt to breathe.

But I abandoned those things when I turned ten—one by one, slowly erasing myself until not much was left. I wanted so badly to be an adult, my siblings probably felt it too, hell…everyone probably felt it too. The urge to be older and wiser than you are. I thought being older meant people would respect me more.

Isn’t that why we stopped playing with sand, stopped making fake dishes with our mother’s foodstuffs, or hosting fake competitions? It seems I wasn’t the only one who felt it.

At ten, I told myself I wasn’t a child anymore. I wasn’t treated like one, so I felt I had to grow up fast so I wouldn't look like one. I wanted to step into rooms without being questioned about whether I belonged there. I hated being so young when my mind already felt old. I hated all the things I couldn’t do and all the places I couldn’t go. So I erased myself.

Now, at seventeen, I know that was the biggest mistake of my life. Because all I want is one last chance to be a child.

I want to paint on walls. I want to ride a bike, fall off, get back up, and ride again. I want to do foolish things and laugh about them without feeling ashamed. I want to fail and try again. I want to live without feeling like my life is seeping away like leaking sachet water.

I used to count the years and months until I’d be eighteen, nineteen, twenty—convinced that older meant freer. But standing at the edge of adulthood, all I want is to go back. Sixteen, fifteen, fourteen—even younger.

I’ve wasted so much time trying to outrun myself.

I thought if I kept everyone’s interests before mine, maybe they’d love me enough to make me feel real. But that was a fool’s paradise.

Tonight I finished watching Straw. It made my heart clench in that quiet, familiar way. It reminded me of The Hate U Give and Ginny & Georgia—and how the world keeps throwing shit at single mothers, piling burdens on them. The world isn’t kind to you when you’re alone.

P.S. I think Teyana Taylor is so beautiful.

Anyway, I don’t quite know what I’m trying to say, except that I’m trying to find my way back to myself. Because it’s not too late. It’s never too late to be a little foolish, to draw messy lines and erase them. To write things no one else may read. To be seventeen and ten all at once.

Here’s to living.

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Here's a song I've been liking

https://open.spotify.com/track/2vXSHAPCNpWZ7DNFDkEDMz?si=LwcE4Lx1TR-gvjdPPwsCpg

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