Who Have I Become?

Since 4:55 this morning, I've been 19 years old.

This is the only time that my birthday will fall on a Monday until June of 2027, and so I want to say something good, something that I've been thinking about for a while now:

Identity.

There are lead-ups in this world (drum-roll before entrances of smiley comedians, slow lean ins and peeks at lips before kisses, wild winds before wilder storms). At 23, I'll say that everything before 23 was a lead-up to that moment. For now, 19 is--of course--the biggest I've ever been, and everything up until now has been one big lead-up.

The people that surround me, the skirts that hug my hips, the sound of my voice, and the sugar and molasses that spill from it are so ornately intertwined with the last year, though. So much has happened since last June, and the metaphor for it all is, as always, of fruits.

A few summers back, I took on my first title:

Cherry Girl

The cherry red car and dress, cherry milkshake and dipped cone were like signatures. Every move that I made or word that I spoke was a love letter to life itself, and the cherries were my name at the bottom of the page. I'd folded the notes into triangles, tucked them into cream envelopes, licked their seals, and kissed their tops with cherry red lips to mark that they were mine.

Eventually, winter came and cherries went out of season. With spring, strawberries started blooming in the fields, and I started to collect them. Strawberries and cherries were both classic, nostalgic, feminine, and sweet. But cherries felt wild, youthful, and electric, while strawberries were much more pink than red, tender, soft, sweet-smelling, quiet. The cherry days were fireworks and stolen kisses, naïve sagas of love and rebellion. Strawberries were different, gentler, about heartache and heart healing, the flickers within me, rather than the wildfires around.

Then, there was an era without any fruit at all: the dessert days. It started at the bakery--with lunch lady peanut butter bars and German chocolate cookies. My good friends Ben & Jerry came for a visit in October. I put some fresh sheets on the bed in the guest room and had them over for a month or so. Cosmic Brownies had a huge moment too.

When I decided to move up North, though, to my blue school, blueberries bloomed everywhere. They represented something new, something blue--foreign to me. I'm all red and white and gold, and it's very rare that anything blue has my fancy. To move to Blueberryville was to try something entirely cool-toned, and unfamiliar. And then, the unfamiliarity of blueberries became the most cozy and familiar flavor. I fell in love with blueberries--the symbol for best friends, snow blankets so heavy that I couldn't make my car out of the driveway, winter flings, and waitressing.

Blueberries were only blue when they were unfamiliar, though. I don't know if you know, but blueberries are only blue because we pick them before they're ripe. If you let them grow for a little longer, they get a bit bigger, turn a burgundy-ish color. Then, they're called Pomegranates.

Pomegranates came this spring, the Persephone fruit--a symbol of the youthful, innocent girl that had always valued over harmony over freedom, until she didn't. She looked out over the landscape of the manicured gardens that she'd created to please the people who surrounded her, turned her back, and headed to the mountains, full of wildflowers and wild beasts. She took off her white robes and swam naked in the middle of the night. This spring was about leaving behind my own innocent maidenhood, rejecting the desires that others had for me, and doing what made me happy. Persephone was the goddess of spring and youth, until she became the queen of the underworld with a bite of a pomegranate.

Symbolically, each fruit represented a season of my life. There were cherry summers--full of excitement and butterflies, beginnings of romances, and sparks. Strawberries were springs, peaceful times of growth and softness. Blueberries were falls of fall aparts and making room for new. Pomegranates were winters of wilts and being a bitter, cold, bad b.

Recently, it's become so undeniably clear that it's cherry season again. Everything has fallen into place in such an exciting way with the new job, the new home, the hot weather, the chocolate tan. But, most unexpectedly, the spark of a new flame. Cherries were in season when I last fell in love, and maybe they've come back just in time for another. (Right as I wrote that, I looked at the clock and saw that it was 2:22. I'll take that as a sign.) We won't get into those details, but I'll just say that today is my birthday and I'm going to Lagoon with a handsome devil in my cherry red top and a handful of cherry red cherries to munch on while we drive down.

I've always been a cherry girl, a summer girl, birthday on the summer solstice, the first day of the season. I've always loved the bright, round look of a good cherry pair-y and how classic they are. Cherries are like milkshakes and Thunderbirds from 1957, cat eye sunglasses and little heels, twirly skirts at sock hops and Johnny Mathis songs.

So much has happened before age 19. I can count a dozen different versions of myself, most much better than the ones before, and I love that. I love to look back and see where I've come free. It's like turning around on a hike and looking down at the spot where you started--you can't but sneak a peek from the peak.

Let's end this silly, little ramble with some photos: