for a long time, I thought I was incapable of feeling emotion.

as i was growing up - from as long as i can consciously remember - if I had an event or trip coming, or a visit with friends, or was anticipating a concert or art showing, i manufactured emotions. I knew what I should feel - that I should feel happy or excited. but I also knew what I felt was feigned - they were the feelings I was compelled to tell others I was experiencing, when they asked.

and today marks another year lived - and somehow, this photo reflects this year most perfectly. just can’t keep it together, and still can’t figure out when laughing isn’t appropriate.

in some ways I'm a grown up.  a pretty serious grown up with serious grown up life things. and then, in other ways, that adult person, stares down the barrel of a stranger - a childlike being. bathed in immaturity and fraudulence. and while 'age is but a number' I sometimes think of an individual item in the 'not even close to behaving like an adult' column, and make sure no one else is watching, noticing, realizing that i'm a sheep in wolves clothing (*idiom reversed intentionally). then, upon reflection, I awake to this entire book of them - of things that I've recently begun to realize that at some point (likely soon), I will need to grow out of.