I turned thirty this year. I was looking forward to it more so than any birthdays past; perhaps because it felt like I was finally shedding the painful early years of my twenties. The words I've written the last decade have only gotten better, more saturated in authenticity. If I'm lucky enough to live this next decade, I plan on living it with full-hearted excitement for what is coming next every day.

I wanted a romance, a life, that was bigger than the one I actually had, but I was too afraid of letting myself have something real. Of being seen. Of feeling so much for someone or something.

"I don't understand why you're so angry," he said. He was leaning against the dresser I hated but he wanted to buy because the old one didn't fit in our room. The old one, stuffed full of a life I could not seem to get away from. The new one I refused to be a part of. It held only his socks, his underwear, his shirts.

"Just be happy, Al."

I was so angry. I was so angry all of the time. To me, the last five years of my life revolved around being sensitive to someone else's feelings, as though mine did not matter.