I should be grading or planning or doing any of the other 23 things on my to-do list, but instead I’m contemplating, and my mind is a frenzied cacophony of questions and thoughts, so I thought I’d write my way to silence. This morning, I woke up at my usual time, and it felt strange not climbing out of bed to get ready for school and my students. I felt out of sorts, so I read. One was a book I thought I had finished, but I was wrong. The other was an ARC that I brought home

Who I was at 21, who most of us were at 21, I wouldn’t want to know. Who I was at 23 was more aware, but still willing to absolve myself of ignorance and absorption. It wasn’t until I was 25 that I emerged fully formed but with wings still wet. But at 21, there was someone who thought I was worth knowing. Someone I didn’t want to know at 18, but that 21st year, my 22nd year of life, I became drunk on him. I’m still imbibing. Still wasted. Still wanting. Still loving. Counting

How is it February? It really is true that the older you get the faster time seems to pass. It isn’t even that the months seem endless when you were young. It’s that time was meaningless because you had so much of it and so many miles to go. But as you age it speeds up, almost like life is pulling you towards an inevitable conclusion. That’s morose, but also a reminder to live every moment the way you want to live. Write the story instead of filling in the blanks. That last s