five year plan

I was watching my dog chew grass and found myself wondering if my brain has been completely rotted or if it will still turn into something beautiful. I have church socks in my underwear drawer that I haven’t worn in years, but will never throw away.

I like to imagine things I’ll pass down to a daughter I don’t know that I’ll have: my weathered middle grade books, in all of their cracked spine glory, the first poem that made me feel like I could think, pictures I don’t remember taking. I love her already. I hope that she thinks I am smart, but does it even matter?

In a middle school reading class, I was told that real paragraphs are meant to be seven to ten sentences long. I wrote long paragraphs full of nothing and got A’s on my analyses. I am not good at analysis, not now, not yet. I remember fragments of those years, whispers of rumors that meant the world to me for three day periods, all about people I don’t talk to anymore.

I used to have five year, ten year plans, but I think to myself five years ago, and I know now I will just be glad to just be somewhere, doing something, with someone, in five years time.