Somewhere Between 17 and Whatever This Is

There’s something cruel about nostalgia.

Not the soft kind, the kind that comes from old movies or childhood photos, but the kind that lives in your chest like a second heartbeat. The kind that pulls you backward when all you’re trying to do is move forward. The kind that whispers, “Remember how easy it was? How certain you felt?” even when it wasn’t actually easy. Even when certainty was a borrowed feeling.

Sometimes, I dream in seventeen.

In the version of myself who thought love meant pinning someone down and kissing them under traffic lights, not worrying about whether they’d call me back or leave me on read. That version of me danced in crosswalks, lit up like a song with no bridge, just verses that kept saying stay. Love wasn’t complicated. It was loud and fast and high. It didn’t require decoding or doubt. It just was.

But then we get older.

And we wake up in the middle of a twentysomething life, blurry-eyed and spinning in limbo. Suddenly love is a maybe. A text left hanging. A laugh that turns sharp when you say too much. Now it’s “we might be alright” and “we probably won’t work.” It’s wondering if you’re asking for too much or if you’ve been given too little. It’s wanting to go back to that dream but knowing too much now to stay asleep.

Because here’s the truth:

I still want someone to hold me tight and tell me we’re alright.

But I also remind myself that I’m grown. That I can leave the party early. That I don’t have to wait for a version of love that only existed when I was 17 and didn’t know what it meant to be scared of staying, or scared of leaving.

And so we live here, in the middle.

Dancing with bruised hearts. Laughing through the pain.

Not quite kids, not quite sure.

But still trying.

Still dreaming.

Still choosing the good nights when we can.