It's pretty strange being a grown up. Not so much the rent and the bills and the putting myself to bed by a reasonable time, I've been doing those things for a while now.
I can navigate a supermarket and rarely miss a bus. Not more than twice a week. I planted a herb garden in pots on the porch and it isn't dead yet.
My knickers are on a makeshift line above the heater. They look rather festive, like bunting, in red and white and fuchsia, sea green and orange.
But I'm in a relationship with a real live woman. Not a girl.
And she says that I am an intelligent, beautiful woman. I think I feel like a girl.
I say "when I grow up I want to be..." and she says "why do you say it like that? As if you're not?"
Sometimes she says "I'm sorry. I forget you're 23."
Sometimes I say "I'm only 23!"
We make plans, saying "One Day We Should", even "In A Couple Of Years We Could." And we're starting to move past the point where one of us rushes to fill the gap with "I-mean-if-we're-still-you-know...we."
I find the magnitude of these plans overwhelming, often.
I circle them warily, sizing them up. Will you fit? Will I fit? Should I build my life around this?
We argued the other day over where we would get married, if we decided to In A Couple Of Years.
I said "I'm not going to get married at the bloody Club." She said "We can't have it in the garden. What if it rains?"
I thought, we will have it in the garden, you just don't know it yet. And we will make paper lanterns to hang in the tree branches.
I think I want to learn to knit. A small goal, to slip in my pocket.

I don't mean to make it sound like we are all seriousness and settled.
We drove to the beach the other night. She had towels in the back seat.
We stripped naked and left our clothes in the sand. And screamed as the water hit our bodies.
Mid-night. Mid-winter.
I've always wanted to do that.