27 in 3

i hardly recognize myself. i’ve got a green thumb and a gym card on my key chain. i get tipsy after two sips of gin. i dream about homemade spaghetti sauce with freshly torn basil and black iron coat racks. i haven’t gotten a proper hair cut in 6 months.

i rush home so that i can water the plants before it gets dark and finish the painting i started in the morning and crawl into bed, close my eyes and feel muscles i never knew i had.

“do you remember ever being sore when you were little?” i ask everyone.

i don’t. i repeatedly scabbed my elbows and knees, but i don’t remember ever lamenting how much i ache. i ache so much these days, but they tell me it’s a good kind of ache, the kind that means you are doing something right– that you’re moving around– that you’re alive.

when i told my mom that i was getting tired of the bright colors, she said, “oh, you’re getting old.”

it’s a joke i make, often. i’m such a grandma, i laugh. a lola, lisa chimes. but i really don’t feel like one. i feel different, but not old, and i don’t think it’s the same thing.

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