Lessons in Letting Go

You will be 18 when you first tell your mom you found “the one.”

You will be wrong.

It will take years for you to realize this,

but she knew all along.

At 20, you’ll find yourself in a café in a city you’ve always dreamed of,

laughing at jokes you don’t find funny

across from a boy whose eyes you could get lost in,

only to learn that some flames only flicker.

At 22, you will meet another boy with a chipped front tooth

who teaches you how to skateboard

and always catches you when you fall.

You will think you love him, only to realize you never even knew him at all.

At 24, there will be the girl with the tattoo of a feather on her wrist,

who loves cats and cries at Disney movies — she’ll say they’re actually pretty deep.

She’ll buy you chocolates from the little shop on Third Street

and write you poems that you’ll one day delete.

There will be late-night arguments over text,

drunk paragraphs sent at 2 a.m.

that you’ll wake up to regret.

There will be a phone call that leaves you sobbing on the kitchen floor,

half-eaten pizza molding on the counter.

Mom will hear your cries through the door.

You’ll tell her it’s nothing,

but she’s been there before.

You’ll kiss in rainstorms and on rooftops,

in alleyways and cramped dorm rooms.

You’ll hang up posters of bands you don’t really like

and drench yourself in your mom’s old pheromone perfume.

Your heart will ache, and break, and at times it will feel like more than you can take.

You will chase love like a kite in the wind,

holding tight, letting go, and chasing again,

only to be left chagrined.

You’ll look back on all the times you thought,

“This is it,” only to find it was not.

You’ll know it when you’ve found it,

and Mom sure will too,

because, believe it or not,

she was once just like you.