The night my nails didn't get painted

What time is it, 11? Fuck, it's already so late.

We both had to work early and this fucking heat was making us tired. 

I didn't want to leave her because I hadn't seen her in four days, which for us felt like a month.

She's kind of my boyfriend, after all.

My person.

I've never met anyone whose the exact same brand of crazy I am. 

We both understand why we will unfollow and refollow a lover within twenty-four hours. 

Why we will want to stay in wearing nothing but yoga pants & sports bras & then suddenly when we should already be in bed need to go out and find the debaucherous satisfaction only late late nights can bring. 

Or why we can spend every night together and never get sick of each other. 

I fucking love her. 

But we did need to call it a night and my mind was processing so many different things I still needed to get done. 

Because at 11:30pm in my cluttered apartment I'm suddenly going to check everything off the checklist I haven't even made time to write. 

I should write tonight, I thought, driving home. 

I haven't written in a couple days.

Because sometimes that's what happens when you're too busy losing yourself in your experiences. 

I'm in this constant state, this tormented dichotomy, of wanting to go and be present in everything with everyone and wanting to stop and stand in some corner alone so I can process and observe it all. 

And write about it. 

I thought, You should run more, because most of the time I'm in the city now I'm drinking.

And I do love to run.

And I should go to bed earlier, so I can get up and give myself enough time to get dolled up for work. 

And I should paint my nails. 

And I should be reading a book.

And I should have another date lined up.

Because I haven't had sex in two weeks and when a friend hugged me over the weekend in his purely platonic way, I was so turned on I couldn't even say goodbye because my mouth stopped working. 

Fucking fuck. 

There's not enough time. 

For all the fucking fantastic things I love.

And all the incredible people I know and haven't met yet. 

And as I was driving I thought about my friends who have consistency.

The friends who work out every morning, who plan their meals and put clean sheets on their bed every Sunday. 

Friends who wouldn't stay out until 2am as some couple's unicorn and then come home and send photos to their ex because in spite of the wild blur of the nights excitement his face creeped into their mind and they needed desperately to be seen by him right then.

And as I wondered why I was such a chaotic cluster of inconsistency I suddenly realized how dark it was. 

Like, overwhelmingly blanketed in darkness. 

And I suddenly realized I was driving through lights that weren't green. 

They weren't anything. 

Because there was no light anywhere. 

The power had gone out across the entire grid of my neighborhood. 

I looked up through the window in my car and the stars looked incredible.

I hadn't seen them that bright since I drove home from the coast three months ago. 

I got to my apartment and changed out of my tight, white dress.

My apartment was sticky and I grabbed a pair of tiny shorts and a loose shirt. 

I immediately grabbed my phone and my keys and headed back outside. 

Cartier mewed plaintively in the open window and I cooed back in my baby voice, I'll be right back, boo boo. I'm just going for a walk.

But I only made it a block before the beauty of it overcame me. 

And I threw my keys and my phone on the grass and sprawled out on my back. 

It was dark and quiet and the grass felt cool on my bare legs. 

I stared. 

I just drank in the stars.

And I remembered how much I've always loved the cosmos, learning about space.

Supernovas. 

Black holes. 

And I thought of him. 

But it wasn't longing. 

I was too overwhelmed with this moment, with the satisfaction of being completely alone and witnessing such an unexpected surge of beauty. 

I didn't need anything else. 

And it was then I knew.

I wasn't the type of girl who ran every Tuesday or finished a novel each week or made time to write every day, because I was a creature of moments. 

And the past forty eight hours had led me perfectly here. 

And there was nowhere else I wanted to be. 

Laying in the grass.

Under a sea of stars. 

At ten to midnight. 

That was the life I wanted.