Sixty seven beats per minute

Click above to play/pause accompanied post music.

Dear friend,

It's three in the morning. I can hear the rain and the music but mostly I hear the sound of my heart.

1, 2
3, 4
5, 6
7, 8
9, 10

Sixty seven beats per minute

Sometimes I wonder how I'm still here

Others times I wonder where I'm going, if I'm going

This is one of the strangest times of my life

Last week at the park, a kid who couldn't be more than ten asked me "Are you a boy or a girl?"

I said girl.

His older brother looked at me weird

I can officially attest to the love hate relationship with bras
and feeling sick randomly, while also suggesting we go to KFC immediately

I know this is all I write about these days. It's all I think about.
And I know I shouldn't be sorry for that, but a part of me is

I feel like a scratched record

One minute, I'm listening to the opening chords, looking in the mirror and I see myself

Really-see-myself

But by the time I hear the chorus she's gone from the mirror
and I'm scared again
wondering how I'm going to afford everything
hoping not to go into too much debt
hoping I'll stop hating myself and how I look
hoping my parents come around
hoping she'll stay in the mirror

I cry more easily now.

I don't know whether or not this just confirms stereotypes,
but estrogen is the reason I cry when I'm laughing too

I can't describe what it's like to constantly bounce back and fourth between
I think I'm actually going to make it 
and
I'm screwed, but I might as well try.

I don't know which one is true.

Which means I don't know if I'm ever going to get married,
adopt a baby,
or really anything.

I want to believe there will be a day when
I'm finally just a normal girl (and maybe a mom)

I'm scared to go out of the house in anything that could get me stared at or harassed,
so I just wear hoodies
Sometimes I don't drink water so that I can avoid public bathrooms
and I don't know how I'm going to go on my road trip in April
I have a one in four chance of being assaulted
and it doesn't feel real

I can't imagine anyone trying to hurt me, and hopefully I won't have to

On Sunday, I was at my friend Emily's mission farewell
Someone was asking me if it was hard
I told them about my parents
About how they don't know I run on estrogen now

And she said, "Wow, you're really on your own in this, aren't you?"

I hadn't thought of it that way until that moment.

But I'm on my own in this, aren't I?