23

I woke up from a vivid dream this morning, wrapped in my oversized white comforter, a little too warm, but comfortable. I opened my eyes to see a face lying beside me, eyes closed, breathing in and out slowly, morning scruff accentuating the strong jawline of the man I love. I blinked a few times in a row to assure myself that I was awake, and that he and I were both real, and then I began to quietly weep. I wasn't sure why, on all days, that this morning I should feel such heavy emotions crippling my thoughts, weighing down on my reality, but it flooded over me until my vision was blurred by liquid heartache. 

After a few minutes passed, my sleeping giant awoke rubbing his eyes, and mid stretch, he kissed me on the forehead before making the courageous leap out of bed and heading for the shower. I laid flat, staring at the ceiling, willing time to stop for just a moment so that I could catch my breath, face facts, size up the world and what it wanted from me, but the tick of the clock mocked me as the hands crept forward, out of my control. 

Today I am twenty-three. I'm not sure what the age means or what the number represents other than that it is a time capsule of all my fears and loves and memories, this double digit number. It loops me into a category and holds me down under it's thumb, pinning to my chest a list of things I should and should not be, things I should and should not do, and places I should and should not visit at twenty-three. It defines me. 

These numbers that we wear pinned to our chest tell us how we should act and what we have achieved in the years we've been allotted. They weigh us down and remind us how much we have left to do, and they drive us mad as we try our best to fit everything that we've put off into the short year we have left before that number changes again. The number pinned to my chest reads twenty-three, but somedays I feel seventeen, and other days forty-seven. The constant ticking of the clock sets in motion a deadline for each meaningless task we set for ourselves, weighing down our freedom and our creativity. 

Maybe we're all twenty-three, and maybe we're all fourteen and thirty-eight and seventy-two. Maybe we're made up of the people and places we meet, see and dream of, and maybe we pin these numbers to our chest to hold us down from ever getting too ahead of ourselves.

But here's the thing, we're allowed to get ahead of ourselves. 

We're allowed to dream big and make plans that we don't intend on keeping. We're allowed to create and love and constantly change, and that's the beauty in being human. The beauty is that we are only defined by what we allow to define us, be that numbers or degrees or the small minds of others. We set the stage for the chaotic play we perform for an audience of one, and no matter how much we try to over think it, we are blank canvases displayed in a gallery filled with fiends who live to tear us down and tell us that art must be colorful and pricey. 

This morning I woke up twenty-three, but tonight I am free. 

Sincerely, Aspen