" title="Juliane Huang"> Juliane Huang

27 Is The Age For Love

… or whatever.

I was digging through an old spiral notebook today, searching for unused lined paper, when I found a sheet on which I had tracked personal going-on’s for past birthdays in a manner similar only to archaic library catalogues.  Handwritten.  Yellowed paper.  Saved as reference.

20 was spent lounging, daiquiri in hand, by a pool off the coast of Mexico.

21, drunk in Las Vegas, encouraging strange men to buy me drinks and forcing my sister to be my designated driver.

22, at my parents’ house in Tustin, abnormally thin and suffering from a broken heart.

23, indoors during a rainy Taiwan spring, receiving the largest bouquet of flowers I’ve ever gotten. 

24, revelling in the most beautiful part of China, letting everyone think my friend was my husband just because we shared hotel rooms. 

25, in someone’s bathroom in Manhattan, sobbing because my grandfather had just gotten diagnosed with terminal cancer. 

26, training in San Francisco for the half-marathon race that I completed 2 weeks later.

27?  My god, that’s coming up fast.

I wonder if 27 should be the year I find myself in an authentic, loving relationship.  Fully recovered from what I was almost led to believe would be an insurmountable heartache at 22, I speak with more reservation, I write with less conviction, and I run when I should stay.

And damn if I’m not ready for something else.

In a few months, maybe I’ll find myself engaging in romantic relationships where longevity is an actual possibility.  Or maybe I’ll just keep dating the hell out of this city until it cries uncle and refuses to see me.  I mean, I need something with which to occupy my time (lord knows I can’t find a job to save my life).