I wonder if you could guess my age...

The air was warm and somewhat wet today. Remniscent of spring showers I pranced through so long ago I can barely recall them. I breathed deep as I maneouvered the back alley leading up to my school; there was nothing new about this scene. I had arrived promptly before class with just enough time to give a little lip service to my favourite glass piece out back. One of the most magical things about our smoking pit was that it was essentially the place old projects came to die. Feet away from the large recycling bin  our school uses, seemingly abandoned art pieces would often resurface as something new. Dismantled chairs, neon orange yarn and a small plastic bag full of water are only a few of the strange items that now decorate our tree. Pallets became tables and over the years the out door living room has had a hoover vaccuum, lamps, chandeliers and two televisions...not that we had anywhere to plug them in...but as they became convered in graffitti doodles and poems they were all essential elements to our fluctuating instellation. I now wedged our latest community bong (an ACTAUAL three dollar vase from value village that one of the glass kids made a bowl and stem for) in between my legs and prepared to start my day in the usual manner. But something about today felt different. I couldn't quite put my finger on it but for no particular reason I was almost overwhlemed by a sense of accomplishment. Yet other than getting dressed and not putting my clothes on inside out or backwards I had yet to achieve much. Maybe it had something to do with my birthday. During my birthday month I always find myself in these strange reflective states but this coming year has been a slightly different epiphany than usual. I usually come kicking and screaming into my next year despising the thought of growing old and selling out. But this year there was something more akin to the feeling of hope swelling in my chest. I feel like I have finally arrived. Like I am not only ready for the world to look at me (which I have always been accustomed to) but to ask who I am. Over the years it has always been easier to define what I am not... mainstream... typical.... docile...normal...but there were so many different avenues to explore fucking with the status quo that up until now I have felt that I was really just taking my time getting a little taste of everything....because my number one philosophy in life has always been that you can't truly know what your favourite flavour is until you have tried them all. So here I am. Taking a phatty toke. Grinning like a fool. Feeling particularly happy to be Wendy Orr. And all of it really boils down to being able to sit down with my imperfections, face them, and realize how unimportant they are in the whole totality of what my soul is made of. I am not perfect. I can be lazy impatient and hyphochritical. My room is almost constantly a chaotic mess. I am a trypical Aries with strong opinions and I don't like to be proven wrong. I can come on really strong. I smoke a fuck load of pot and cigarettes too. I am not saying that I am proud of all of this. But I am also not saying that I am ashamed. A lot of my growth this year has come from being able to face the darker facets of myself and come to realize that at least I am someone who is conscious of my descrepencies and works towards healing them. And the more I come to terms with this the less afraid I am of being an adult and taking on new responsibilites. I know a few people are watching my moves with curiosity this summer. Is it even possible? Will she completley fall on her face? Does she even know what she is doing? I am not so jaded to think that everything will go off with out a hitch and that Jesse and I will not face adversity in some form or another, but I do know that this is the first time in my life where I have taken something that was compleley my own idea and tried to bring it to life. To say that its going to be full fledged in it's first year is naaive. But I am going into this adventure as someone who is a quick and eager learner and I am ready to compile everything I learn his summer and make round two even stronger. Because that is utlimatley how life goes. We test out new boundaries, cross new lines, makes new fuck ups, but all along the way we have to take those momentary breaks, those indulgent morning tokes and sit back and realize all the progress that has already been made. All the baby steps that are now full fledged motions. All the day dreams that are now waking life. As I write this the sun has finally set on this warm wet day, and I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for a little rain to prance through- because we never truly appreciate the sunshine without it.