I feel like I should know better.

I had a big, round, divisible by 5 birthday this week - it didn’t end in a zero so I’m not spiraling too hard - but I am spiraling a little. At this point I am definitively not ~just a kid~. Lamenting how weird my birthday made me feel to my mom, I could see her eyeballs winding up for a massive stroll around their sockets— “I know I’m not old,” I stressed, “I just feel like I’m not young enough to be dumb anymore.” I’m not talking about major fuck-ups, but the delightful little oopsies that make youth youth.

In my early 20s I went to every club. I went home at dawn every weekend. I moved to New York to do the thing and Jesus Christ, I really did the thing.

And I like to tell myself that if I showed up at a secret party in Bushwick tomorrow I’d blend right in! No waiting in line for me! (Are there even lines and bouncers anymore? Are the parties still in Bushwick?) But I know I’m no longer a candidate. No longer eligible for a rave—not that my body could even handle it, I just liked k…