Before

    Before I turn 80, I want to fly to New York and climb to the top of the Statue of Liberty and look out at the city and throw confetti out the windows. I want to buy a brand new house and paint it with friends and decorate it with things I bought from thrift shops and have tea parties on the balcony. I want to go on runs and swing on swings and drink lemonade from $10 plastic bottles and let the wind attack my hair. Before I turn 80, I want to cuddle up in front of a fireplace and type up a manuscript and send it to an agent and have my very first book published. I want to go to a concert with friends and scream until my throat burns and cry when my idol sings her last number and be in awe. Before I turn 80, I want to feel good about myself and not cringe every time I look in the mirror and be able to walk out the door without eyeliner and lose 10 pounds because I want to not because I'm being pressured to do so. I want to connect with friends and recall old memories and laugh until I cry and do meaningful things and run around the mall playing tag and get yelled at by grumpy old men and burst out giggling when they turn their backs. Before I turn 80, I want to live, not survive.

8:08

It's 8:08 pm. I feel trapped, like there's an invisible barrier around me. It's like the world's knocking on my door, begging me to come with it and explore its four corners. But I'm padlocked inside an iron cage, with a window too high for me to look out of and a door that leads to nowhere.

There are other prisoners with me, teenagers with tired faces and bags under their eyes. I see the glint in their solemn gaze, the wanderlust trapped behind closed doors. I feel the obligation to comfort them, but I don't.

It's 8:14 pm. I want to slip out the back door and become one with the shadows and listen to the whistle of the wind and feel the cold winter air. I want to hike to the top of a mountain and sit beside a flickering campfire and roast a marshmallow and look out at the city below me.

It's 8:16.

Fun

I want to road trip with people I love and stick my head out of the sunroof as we rocket down the highway and scream at the top of my lungs and take 17 shots of vodka and get drunk under the stars and dance until we forget.

I want to climb to the peaks of mountains and write poems at the tops of skyscrapers and skydive over lakes.

I want to have my breath taken away by the stars and the moon and the sky.

But fun has an age limit and a price tag and I'm neither old enough nor can I afford such a luxury of not giving a shit about anything else in the world.