Everyone ages differently.

Sometimes you become 50 at five years old, watching double a edged blade take away memories you’ll never know. Holding flowers in one little chubby hand and a blue toy truck in the other, it makes the confusion feel a little more clear. Crisp suits are for weddings but you wore your favorite one, Daddy would’ve been proud. It took so long for the fog to stop rolling around in your head, but you finally understood, band-aids don’t heal all the wounds. God can’t bring him back no matter how much you miss him, and you don’t have your three wishes to make.

Sometimes you find your 16 at 25. Laced in blankets and tights, you dye your hair all the colors of your favorite sunsets and stay up too late for your time. Mounds of laundry and missed phone calls, you can’t keep down a job and  you’re too impulsive for anyone to want to stick around.  basking in unsureness, you’re lacking self discipline, looking for a rock to hang onto. You don’t answer your door when somebody knocks and peers through curtains at 2 pm on a  lazy Saturday, rebelling for the satisfaction, roaming for the thrill. You’re still finding yourself, even if everyone else says you don’t have the time.

Sometimes you meet 30 at 19, mistakes led to love. Working overtime, frazzled all the time and you haven’t washed your hair in three days. Giving up all your other dreams because she’s your biggest one. Sometimes you cry into the dishes at night, moonlight reflecting into your eyes and exhaustion highlighting your eyes. But when she laughs it makes your day and when she says I love you, you know you’ve altered her whole universe, even with no one’s help. When she took her first steps, you wished someone else had noticed but she was there for you to smother with all your kisses. When you replaced your wine for apple juice, nothing had ever tasted sweeter.

Sometimes you come across 14 at 60 shifting through old boxes and looking at faded photographs. Staring into reflections wondering where youth went, when did lines become so permanent and when did they start standing up when you wanted to take a seat. The glitter in your hair and the life inside your eyes, what you would do to be there again. Trying on old dresses, they don’t fit the way they used to but you’re spinning around trying to feel beautiful, don’t you know, you still are.

Sometimes…sometimes there just isn’t enough time so you walk from 1 to 100 and back all the time, trying to fit what you have left in all these small spaces.