One Time In New Orleans

Getting old is for the birds. I could lie and say that nobody read us the fine print, that we stumbled into it unawares, but the fact remains is that we didn't want to listen when people would tell us to stay as young as we could, for as long as we could. Oh no, we'd say. We want to be able to drive and go wherever we want and eat chocolate icing for dinner and stay out all night and somehow wake up in the morning for our cake jobs which pay enough for us to have our own place and still go on vacations. And our parents smiled at us, maybe even encouraged us, but in the back of their minds, they were probably thinking: "This poor. disillusioned. little. bastard." That's okay, Mom & Dad. We sought our revenge by hitting you up for $ when the water couldn't get paid, guilt tripping you into calling the doctor's office for us, and stealing your good detergent. Thanks a lot. Nobody ever told you how tired you would be. Nobody ever told you (and even if they did, you wouldn't listen, because you are young for-eva and you know everything) that you'd wake up sometimes with increasing pain in areas of the body that never required your attention before. That a bad mattress could bring on a year's worth of chiropractic bills. That your job might pay the bills but it doesn't leave you room or energy for much else. That every move felt like Sisyphus pushing that damned rock and getting nowhere for his trouble. Still. You might not be able to eat chocolate icing for every meal, but your taste buds change every ten years, so hey-you get to eat fancy things now. And yeah, you might have to pay for car insurance and a note, but providing you have the money, the energy, and the time, you can blow off to wherever you want and not owe an explanation to anyone. And yes-you could stay out all night and have an amazing time, and not have to worry about Mom & Dad waiting up for you. It does have perks. One of which being is that if you have any pinch of common sense, you learn from your mistakes. When I was fifteen, I fell in love with someone. Deep, agonizing, pull my hair out, fuck me up for life kind of love. It was up and down and torturous, all consuming, and as far as teenage love affairs go-totally typical. I annoyed my friends, I exasperated my family, and I hated myself because I couldn't seem to STOP. I kept on banging my head against the wall, even long after we were truly over, because I was afraid of what was next. I did not know how to be without that feeling. I thought I'd never be free. I wore my misery like a comfortable coat. Plus, it was the early 00’s, and I wore Trapp pants and bike chain necklaces and read JTHM and called myself goth. As if that gave me an excuse to act like Glenn Close and her pet rabbit. But I am free. I've been free for a long time. And sometimes, when I catch myself falling back into old habits with people I am not supposed to have bad habits with, I can't seem to take it to my old extremes. Somewhere along the line, I grew some dignity. And shithouse mouse,  it feels good. Better than any temporary euphoria I would have had if I had given into my temptations. And what's more-I'm not scared of being alone. No matter how old you get, people are going to fuck you over. They're going to ignore you, neglect you, lie to you, drop you like a sack of hot potatoes when they've found something better. Better, as it turns out, is relative. Some people free up time to talk to you and others use their free time to talk to you. And you know, with the right amount of growing up, you don't have to take that shit. Not at all. Not lying down. Not without giving it right back to them in spades. There is a neat line between vindictiveness and pettiness, and having some fucking respect for yourself, and some people don't get the clue until you have to spell it sky high for them in sixteen foot letters: you're not worth my goddamn energy. I have precious little left, and it's not being spent on you. We fall in love so hard when we’re young because we lack perspective. Perspective is only gained by us putting ourselves through a washing machine of events. Some of us choose never to know more than what we are already exposed to. That is why we continue to suffer. “I've heard that it is possible to grow up, I have just never met anyone who's done it.” Fucking Grey’s Anatomy. Rae One time in New Orleans, I got over you.