In his 20s my dad built a porch

Right now I’m sitting on the back porch of my childhood home. I woke up at 5:30am this morning (for the second day in a row) because I’m jet lagged from being in Europe. It’s a weird thing to come home from a long trip where you spent most of it thinking about your future, finally feeling like you might have some semblance of what the next few years of your 20s might look like, and immediately spending 3 jet lagged days sitting in your parents empty nested house.

I’m freshly 22. I’m freshly 22 and it seems like the world is throwing things, decisions, daydreams, and new goals at me faster than I ever could’ve expected for what was supposed to be a mapped out summer. It’s like a switch flipped and I’m suddenly itching to ask Mia’s dad about stocks or forced to consider what good joining a union could do for me.

I’ve always been paralyzed by indecision. I let these things ruin my days. I’ll spend hours agonizing over emails I dread sending. Afraid to disappoint and say huge horrible sentences such as Sorry I’m not free at that time, or even worse, Yes I am free at that time! What they don’t tell you is that at 22 you have to make decisions all the time, even in the summer! And what they really don’t tell you is that when you’re a kid thinking about your last ever summer break, dreading the final care free work free months of your childhood, is that in that last summer you will spend it wishing you had more money, more work, more things to do. You will sit on the same porch, only slightly more worn and far better furnished than it was 10 years prior, and you will wish you could enjoy this last summer, this golden birthday summer that aligns with the catapult shot into independence. You will write on an app you know nothing about, and hope this app will bring you away from your phone? And then you will think That makes no fucking sense. And then you will take a break and pet your dog

and then you will come back. And you will pray to God you spend more time petting your dog this summer than on your phone.

It’s easy to fall back into the same habits when you’ve had the same summer on the same porch for 22 years. It’s easy to feel 17 again (like Zach Efron). But it’s easy too to come outside at 6am, before the heatwave has woken up for another day, and think about how excited I am for 25, 28, 30. How the people in my life are good people, and I will keep swinging their way no matter the city, job, porch that brings me to them. It’s not easy for me anymore to enjoy a summer the way I used to, but at least I don’t mind doing dishes for my parents like I used to either. There are good things that come with an irritating knack for responsibility.

I don’t smoke weed like I used to. But I still might climb on top of the elementary school for the view. We still might walk to the 7/11 and get a slurpie, but leave when they ran out of Coke. Might play the same games might sit on the same porch, drink the same cheap beer I used to with my same 2 friends, just add a few new ones for them too this time and might still get stressed the way I used to about mixing friends or playing host. But maybe not.

I’ve got good people. I’ve got 22 22 22.