Today as I walked down the last of the untouched snow from the first blizzard of 2015 I thought about where I am. Not so much physically, but mentally about where I am at 27. I am here, I thought, as I took the same shortcut I always have through a drive between my block and the next so as to avoid having to circle Queens Blvd. I am here right now and god dammit so much has changed over the course of a couple of years.  So much is the same, yet so much has changed. I was angry to think that I was in the same place that I have been for years but weirdly comforted at the same time to know that I am still in the same place I have been for years. The beautiful paradox of it all.

A little over 3 and a 1/2 years ago my friend Rebecca and I, after years of not speaking, carpooled out to law school in Central Islip, Long Island. We rediscovered each other again after postings on Facebook confirmed that we were both going to be attending the same law school. I was happy to have someone I knew there with me. During the first day of orientation I felt so deeply out of place: my hair freshly dyed back to brown after having spent the summer as a blonde, my tattoos were all exposed and I looked like a walking ad for Beacon’s Closet. It felt off, in short, I had no idea what the fuck I was doing there. During the second day of orientation with the lecture hall full of the incoming class of 2011, I took the Oath of Professionalism: I laughed inside at the ridiculousness of it all. But I wasn’t ready for that. The thought of work and putting on a suit made me ill. I saw another friend from college when I walked outside and asked her if I could bum a cigarette. I knew that was the last time I would ever go back there even though that day I begrudgingly bought law books that cost the equivalent of a month’s rent for an apartment on the East River Waterfront in Williamsburg. That day when I came home I cried to my mother and said that I can’t do this. I want to be a writer.

I just damn hell’ed saved myself $150,000 +.

A few days later my mother, along with my brother, drove me back out to the school to return my books, to which my brother walked up to the counter at the school book store and proudly declared to the cashier: “We shant be needing these.”

I smiled as I finished making my way through the driveway. How life would have been so different had I gone through with it. I thought about all the struggle I wouldn’t have endured and all the endless nights of partying and freedom that I had so deeply craved back then and still do but on a much smaller scale. I thought about how after my brush with law school the restaurant I ended up working at, which unexpectedly (because, hey, it always is) lead to me to meet the man that I fell in love with. I thought about the procession of events and career choices that followed over the years. I had, indeed, made myself a writer and it had taken me all that time to do so. The struggle continues but I am finally getting somewhere.

Two weeks ago I heard back from a law school that I applied to, one that I had wanted so desperately to get into in the years since. I applied on a whim and out of curiosity to see if this time I would get accepted. I told myself that despite my desire to be a writer if I had ever gotten into that school I would at long last owe it to myself to give it a try. This law school is all the things that the other one wasn’t. Once I heard of my acceptance and after the initial shock, scream and awe, one of my greatest fears was realized: some things really do never change. After all of these years there was still something inside of me that wanted it or there was something deep down that wanted to prove to myself that I could still do it and that despite the years I hadn’t completely lost it (which I felt in the years since).

I also realized something interesting: after I left law school the first time, my life changed. I classified myself as a writer and all hell broke loose. I have been struggling ever since and it has only fueled the fire for my writing. My stories were born from the nights of mischief and the men who I went with that I knew that were wrong with me, the people that I met and befriended and whose own stories one couldn’t even conjure up. I had wonderful material. And the sex, the wonderful and weird sex that I had and the relationships that formed that helped me understand the human condition more, leaving me very well versed to offer relationship advice. I didn’t travel as much as I would have liked to but oh the wonderful things I packed into all 27 years of my life. I did it and I didn’t regret a minute of it.

Every writer needs a story and I’m still working on it.

Once I got inside my building, as I walked up the five flights of stairs to my apartment, as I always do (it’s great exercise) I thought that I made my choices and it’s not a coincidence that I’m here right now. I think I know where I’m going but I know now where I want to go. There are no coincidences, just life. I know that my first world struggle is OK and that everything is the way it’s supposed to be.

And if it’s not, nothing can stop you from changing it.

Taryn

xx