Learning to Live at 18

It was those crisp summer evenings where Zoey Miller would sit on the fire escape outside her bedroom window. She’d spent much of her teen years out there, thinking about any sort of predicament she was in.

Zoey would wrap herself in her grey sweatshirt with her dream college on it and stare out at the quiet streets of her suburban town while the sun set in the distance. It was the only place she could think; she didn’t know what she would do when she left in a few days.

Oh God. A few days, Zoey repeated. She’d been dreaming of moving to New York since she was in the seventh grade and visited the city with her family. All of the things she did, she did them because she wanted to go to New York. 

She felt like Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life where he tells all the people that, “I'm shakin' the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I'm gonna see the world!” 

Zoey told anyone and everyone she was going to leave that small suburban town she’d grown up in where there was nothing to do aside from go to Target on a Friday night or hang out in empty parking lots. 

Zoey always knew she was meant for more than what the town provided her. She spent every single day working to get out. She got good grades, did more than enough extracurriculars, and even studied abroad for a summer in Italy. Zoey worked hard to get out.

When it was time to apply to college, Zoey applied early decision to school in New York. She anxiously waited for a response. She didn’t know what would happen if she got rejected, and spent weeks anxiously waiting to see an acceptance letter.

It was mid-December when Zoey received her letter in the mail saying she’d been offered a spot at their school. She couldn’t seem to find the words to express how elated she was. She simply ran into the kitchen waving the letter frantically around in the air to show her parents.

They didn’t need an explanation from Zoey; they knew her well enough to know exactly what was in that letter. Her parents hugged tightly. Zoey was officially moving to New York.

She’d spent the next several months fantasizing about her life in college. She talked to her roommates every single day, all of them extremely excited. Zoey couldn’t wait to move in with them. She wrote down the days left on her whiteboard until she was moving out, the smile on her face growing with each day that passed.

But that night Zoey sat on the fire escape and looked at the whiteboard in her room with a measly number “5” written on it in green marker. In five days, Zoey was moving to New York for school. In five days, Zoey was leaving the world she knew.

In five days, her dreams were becoming a reality. And that terrified her.

Zoey thought something was wrong with her. She wanted to talk some sense into herself, to think about how terrified she was. So that was how Zoey ended up sitting on the fire escape, watching the sun set in the distance behind the empty roads of her suburb.

Zoey watched the sun go down. She found it fascinating that no matter what happened, the sun would still rise and fall with each day. No matter what, Zoey was leaving for New York in five days.

She was excited to go and explore the world. She was excited to learn new things and experience the life she had dreamed about living for so long. 

But the idea of leaving all that she knew scared her. Zoey wouldn’t miss the people in the town, that was for sure, but there were certain aspects of the town that she would miss dearly.

Zoey would miss the small bakery that she could walk to from her apartment early in the morning before school to buy a scone and a coffee. She would miss the cul-de-sac on the other side of town she biked around in the summertime. She would miss the volleyball courts  at the park nearby the school where she read in the sand. 

Zoey spent so long criticizing the town that she failed to recognize the beauty within it. And by the time she realized how much she really did love the place where she’d grown up, it seemed as though it was too late.

Zoey watched a blue minivan drive down the street from her fire escape. She felt a cool breeze in the air and pulled the sleeves of her sweatshirt to her fingertips. Of all the things she’d miss about the town, she’d miss nights on her fire escape. Zoey didn’t know when she’d have a moment alone at school where she could look at the world around her and take everything in.

Zoey shifted, the cool metal of the fire escape making contact with her skin. She looked at the ground as she readjusted her position to get more comfortable. When Zoey looked back up at the street below her, she noticed how the view hadn’t changed.

She smiled to herself.

It was like a switch had been flipped inside her brain. All of her thoughts and anxieties seemed to leave her brain and fade away down the quiet streets below. Zoey was at peace with herself; she was excited to see what the future would bring again. Suddenly, she wasn’t afraid anymore.

As Zoey looked around her at the street below, she realized how it hadn’t changed her entire life. Sure, different cars went down the street and various restaurants came and went over the years, but it was still the same. 

No matter how far Zoey would go or how much Zoey would change, that street she’d grown up on would always remain. Although the routine of the town was something Zoey despised growing up, that revelation on her fire escape helped her recognize the profound beauty within it.

Zoey would always be able to go back to that fire escape and the street below would never change. She would always have that private place to herself. And in New York, and wherever she went after college, Zoey would find a place to go that always stayed the same no matter how much she’d changed. 

Zoey was ready for the future again. In fact, she was excited.