Diary of a 20-Something

I spent Independence Day at my best friend’s house, surrounded by people who I love, who I can celebrate freely with each year thanks to people who gave up their lives for us.

I spend a lot of time with my friends. We celebrate the Lord frequently by going to evening church services together, eating homecooked meals together with conversations of God, and staying awake until two in the morning singing worship music.

Christianity, as far as I know it, does not make life easier.

Father’s Day has passed, but it’s still very relevant to me because last Sunday, my family celebrated my dad.

I spent the other day at my boyfriend’s house that’s tucked into some trees at the end of a cul-de-sac. I was rushing to my car, no shoes on (are we surprised?), and saw his next-door neighbors loading up their two vehicles with their five children and several boxes, thinking they were going on vacation.

I’m 24 years old. I work full-time as a newspaper journalist, covering everything between crime stories and feel-good features. My side gig is authoring novels. My free time, therefore, is slim but typically found around sunset on a weekday evening, when I gently ease into nighttime on the front porch.

There’s a lot of words I want to say, but I was unsure how they’d spill out of me in this column.

I thought they’d come to me while I spent my weekend in Boston. But they didn’t.

They didn’t come to me as I pranced out of the Celtics stadium, celebrating because the Heat won.

There’s a picture I rediscovered a few months ago. My mom must have snapped it behind my back, and somehow, it ended up making its way back to me not so long ago.

My home is split in two: half of us is pining for summer weather, and the other half is still craving the snowstorm our town never got.