Eternally Yours

What makes you feel alive? What makes you think life will go on forever? What happens that makes you feel larger than this single moment?

Because life is only millions of moments strung together, and inevitably ends too damn soon, I think we need to allow room for moments that take our breath away, make our heart swell, send butterflies beating through our insides. Because life is only millions of moments strung together, and inevitably ends too damn soon, I think we need to create moments in which we are infinite.

When I go grocery shopping with my mom and she asks what we should have for dinner that night, I am infinitely her daughter; her daughter that will forever look at her as if I am six and no one can ever know as much as she does, her daughter that still gets excited about going to the grocery and McDonals with her, at 24, her daughter that calls her first, no matter what the place, the time, the circumstance.

When I get dressed up and go out with my girlfriends for beer and dancing, I am infinitely a twenty-something girl; a twenty-something girl who will forever laugh loud, without inhibitions, a twenty-something girl that can't imagine my life without my friends, a twenty-something girl who will always be up for 2 AM Taco Bell runs and sleep-overs.

When I sit in my brother's room and talk to him while he gets ready, I am infinitely a 15 year old freshman; a 15 year old freshman who got slapped in the face with reality, a 15 year old freshman who realized the importance of family, a 15 year old freshman who would be lost without this brown eyed boy.

When I think a boy is cute, I am infinitely a self conscious little girl; a self conscious little girl whose palms sweat like a glass of iced tea on a humid day, a self conscious little girl who giggles when she is embarassed that he's caught me looking at him, a self conscious little girl who never quite says the right thing, but always hopes he hears the right thing.

When someone fucks with my family, I am forever my father's daughter; my father's daughter who doesn't think before she opens her mouth, my father's daughter who has the courage of a tiger, my father's daughter who lives loud, loves hard, and has no filter.

Every moment of every day I am all of these things. . . because they are what make me who I am. So, I guess the point to all of this is that my body may never be infinite, it will never live and move forever, my body will not outlast the tests of time. But my soul? It will go on forever. . . in the acts of service I learned from my mother, in the drunken memories of my girlfriends, in the serious conversations with my silly brother, in the nervous laughs heard round the world from girls with crushes, in my father's words spewing out of my mouth. I live thus I make memories. These memories are passed and shared, they may alter, but they do not fade. . . Because in this moment, that conversation last week, those nervous giggles I simply cannot stifle, and the one billion tears I cry, hands I hold, hearts I touch- I live on. I am a memory. I am infinite.

Go make a memory that will last for eternity.

-Stephi D.