Are You There Journal, It’s Me, Erika: number one

Dear Journal, 

I turned 50 last year. It’s weird, a little. I say a little because life goes so fast, it just keeps going, the days. Zip. Zip. They never stop. It’s easy to get swept up in its whirlwind. And when I’m there, I kind of don’t know whether I’m coming or going; I miss a lot. I guess being busy can be a good thing because it means I’m alive. But it is weird in the sense that 50 seems “so long.”  I remember when I was 9 and 12 (Ugh, 12 was hard!) and 15 and 22. I remember. And now, so many years later, I’m 50. When I was 30, I befriended an 86-year-old womxn named, Apples. On one of our visits, she said “Sometimes I look in the mirror and don’t recognize who’s looking back at me; I still feel 28...” Her ruminating hit me hard and rang resoundingly true, somehow—I shouldn’t have known what she was talking about then. Life is just so weird. Since I can recall being alive, I have been fascinated by aging and time. Nothing’s changed yet.