You’ll Never Really Arrive
Or Learning to Love the Late Bloomers
“You’re acting like a teenager.”
The words echoed around the space, cutting through the music, as her eyes shone over the rim of her glass. The yellow liquid looked like a potion. We were tucked in the corner of the jazz lounge, a dim smoky place where vapes and hookahs replaced the cigarettes and cigars of years past. Every note from the saxophone slipped under my skin and hooked in my chest.
But the words lingered. She was teasing. I knew she was teasing. My cheeks went hot. The anxiety, the giddy feeling whenever I check my phone, the strange euphoria of being out at 2am. The unoriginal, cliche firsts that people check off when they’re 16, 17, maybe 18 if they’re late bloomers. They’re nothing extraordinary to most but to me? They’re kind of everything.
Here’s the thing, babes. When you’re just now learning things you really should have learned ages ago, you end up in this odd loop. The world looks at you and says, “Hey, you’ve got the full-time job, the mortgage, you’re in the bio window to have kids, you’re clearly doing life.” Meanwhile, you’re still figuring out basic things like how to parallel park, opening (and closing) a bar tab, and why ghosting people you care about is a bad idea.
