Adulthood

I stared at the mirror. My shoulder-length red hair framed my face. I forgot the last time my face had even seen a razor; my beard reached down to my chest. My head looked like a long U with a large nose. At least I had lost a little weight. I used-to-be 300lbs, now I was maybe 270-260?

I felt proud as I introduced myself to the other Joshua Wilderness students in my mind. I looked around at what I would think the wooden halls looked like. Students flocked together for our initial meeting. Hopefully I’m not the oldest one there. “Hi, I’m Ryan. Oh? You’re twenty too?” I looked back at the mirror. The reality had struck me harder than any truck could have. I’m almost twenty-one. Society is almost ready to call me an adult. I was still a kid in my mind. I’ve never lived on my own, I only recently learned to hold down a steady job, I still imagined myself as a high-schooler. I couldn’t even stand to look at myself anymore.

I left the bathroom and stepped over a heaping pile of clothes just to get in my room. The floor of my room was even worse than the entrance. Clothes and paper covered the ground making it invisible. I flopped down on my bed and turned my head to my desk, a collage of my childhood and my adult life thus far: papers flung about carelessly, action figures from Trigun, a row of manga and video games, a decorative knife (my friends keepsake for me when he stopped cutting), my high school diploma disproportionate against Sufjan Steven’s “Come on, Feel the Illinoise” on vinyl. This is my room? I couldn’t help but imagine myself taking those action figures, the comics and games, and throwing it all away. Dump those keepsakes of my childhood in the trash. I shook those thoughts from my head. Maybe someday, but right now I just don’t think I could.