I’m moving from Oakland into San Francisco.
They say that cells in the human body regenerate so that over a period of seven years we inhabit a completely different body. It’s wild to think that no one on earth is older than seven years old.
“You’re too nice,” they used to say to her.
“So anxious.”
“Why don’t you say something?“
Too stupid, too slow.
Sometimes I can actually feel the cells regenerating, new ones multiplying so fast that they push me around from the inside out. The guts are still there – the glittery muck that swims past stubborn, twitchy precious metals there since the beginning of time.
What if we could give our new bodies what they want sooner?
What if we could zoom forward on the timeline?
My body wants to change. It craves inertia, demands it. On one hand I don’t want to leave Oakland, but on the other I know it’s time.
To stand up straight. To speak for myself and answer to her only. To stop crying in the shower and speak loudly and clearly about the things that aren’t okay in the world instead. To be brave.
To continue building, on all counts.
To choose staying – and trying – instead of running off to southeast Asia like I said I would.
I look across the Alameda estuary towards the San Francisco skyline. The city is illuminated by a pink sunset, looking shiny and new even if it has its own set of problems coursing through its veins.
That’s where my future self awaits.
I can’t wait to meet her there.