a twitch.

As if I hadn't engaged in enough change already. That's the sentence fragment I shall begin with.

DC has been kinder to me these past few weeks, and I have been kinder to myself. In the midst of all of this kindness, my thoughts have kept their place in my head, and most recently, took their place in conversation with the best kind of friend a thinker could have; Consequently, they haven't made their way to this whimsical little corner of my life.

In the meantime, I have been engaging with, as the beginning fragment would indicate, yet more change. The tangible reaction to this would be my left eye, which voluntarily twitches in reaction. It reminds me often that I frequently ask too much of myself, all the while telling myself I am still not doing enough, still feeling stuck in between worlds of adolescence and adulthood, with characteristics of each phase littered throughout my life.

One of the best, as mentioned earlier, came to visit this past week. It was the run-up to her twenty-seventh birthday, which indicates the completion of her twenty-seventh year, and we spent a good deal of conversational energy hatching at our paths and life's direction. After perusing through pictures of a high school friend on the web, with his wife and three kids in check and a very adult-like existence, insecurity about what has yet to be accomplished inevitably rises to the surface.

After finishing my Sunday morning coffee multiple metro stops from home, as well as some changes to a blog post about pancakes I am entering in a creative non-fiction writing contest, and re-entering the house I left earlier in search of the previously mentioned coffee, I joined the company of three adults, two dogs, two bottles of wine and a tray of cheese. Among the adults was the general manager of the premiere sea food restaurant in DC. One of the two dogs belonged to her, as well as a listening ear. As I tried my best to articulate my direction-challenged-direction, and the possibility of another country in my future, her response was that of agreeability and the admonition that, "You're young! You can still do those things!".

This sentence comes in the midst of my self-reprimanding attitude, and the fact that my life fails so completely at resembling the life of an adult. And the adults are telling me to keep it that way.

A year ago, I went to visit the same friend that's presence was so helpful and kind this past week. Her sentence to me last August of two-thousand and nine: "What you're doing there in that place, working your job and living in your little garage apartment and spending time with the good people in you're life? It's fine! But if you're doing the same thing at this time next year, I will kill you. Fast-forward to the time she speaks of, and you have now. I am in fact not doing the same thing, which means I get to keep my life. Her newest sentence to encapsulate my existence: "You're doing okay, kid."

And in light of the kindness I have been bestowing upon myself, I have to agree. If only I could get someone to convince my left eye.