Mixtapes, Delusions, & Death By Cooter Consumption
You’re not in your “I pay rent and know what quinoa is” bedroom.
No — this is your sacred NKOTB- poster-covered-sanctuary.
Let’s go back to the place where late-night whispers with your besties about the bad boys you crushed on whom didn’t know you were alive lived. All while eating bo-bo brand Oreos, and coming up with the elaborate “I’m swear I’m sleeping at her house” lie to each of your parents.
I know for a FACT, you are pretending not to cry about being grounded for the second — 8th grade school dance of the year, because you don’t know how to keep your fucking mouth shut.
Now you are SOOOOOO sure that R.HODGES is going to find a girlfriend, and you won’t be Her because you talked back to your mom and of course, she is RUINING YOUR LIFEEEEEE!!!!!
Breatheeeeeeeee…
Now, ask yourself: What song is playing?
Are Brandy and Monica fighting over a man neither of them needed?
TLC telling you not to chase waterfalls – never fully understanding the song until your late twenties, because who-the-fuck let me ACE Left-Eye’s solo at twelve years old, is beyond me.
Or maybe, is Alanis Morissette raging in ways that made your unprocessed hormones feel seen?
I used to sit by the radio like it was a government job, finger hovering over the record and play button like I was defusing a bomg — except the nuke was 112s “Peaches n’ Cream.”
There was nothing more I need than to include this track to my epic playlist for a boy who didn’t realize I had tits yet.
He was a walking hormone hazard—senior, captain of the football team, cropped blond hair like he’d been airlifted straight out of a Delia’s Men’s catalog.
He probably peek at seventeen, but damn if his baby blues didn’t make me feel like a feral raccoon in heat every time he look my way.
The amount of times I had to squeeze my thighs together to calm the heartbeat between my legs during gym class? Criminal.
I was a nobody freshman with bad skin and worse self-worth. Why would he ever look at me?
But my imagination did the heavy lifting — him, a demigod with a jawline sharp enough to slice deli meat. Me, death by suffocation via cooter consumption. A tragic end — worth it.
I’m not sorry I lost my virginity to him. Manifestation at its finest… or manipulation of a lovesick teen.
Jury’s still out.
** But let me back up, because my ADHD is BLARING — What did that bed actually feel like beneath you??
You know - your teen bed. Yes… we are back to that —
Did you still have that childlike comforter you begged your mom to replace with the latest NKOTB hot pink set?
Because Jordan Knight and Donnie-Fucking-Wahlberg weren’t just posters — they were prophecies.
Maybe you had a body pillow you dry-humped nightly — clueless but convinced you’d cracked some cosmic sex code.
Or a Cabbage Patch Kid hidden away by day but clutched every night. Because yes, you were way to cool for dolls, but not too cool for comfort.
And the smell. Was your room drowning in a near-fatal overdose of Cucumber Melon Body Spray, mixed with teen angst and the mold from the Snapple Peach Tea bottle you swore you’d throw away four weeks ago?
What memory claws its way back when you close your eyes? Pastel butterfly clips in your hair, rocking a New York Knicks bomber jacket? Slow dancing in the middle school gym to K-CI & JoJo, dreaming “I’m gonna have his baby” — and then actually doing it?
Or prank calls — star 67-ing your crush, hyperventilating, and hanging up the second they answered.
Peak comedy.
I never thought I would say I am living back in the same town I grew up in. Yet, here I am, circling back like the worst kind of rom-com plot twist.
Drinking Boone’s Farm by the creek turned into sipping overpriced wine at family dinners. Smoking Newport 100s turned into burning luxury candles.
It comes full circle.
Being here, surrounded by family, memories, and old ghosts — it makes sense.
The chaos, the regrets, the nostalgia.
Growth means realizing happiness isn’t in chasing more, but in savoring the simple shit: a playlist, a candle, a laugh.
Because as long as you’re happier than a pig in shit doing what you love — with peace, clarity, and a side of cucumber melon scented SOMETHING— life is kinda grand.
Til next time…
🩷 Optional chaos challenge:
Create a playlist titled: Fill it with 90s jams that defined your young heart. Think: SWV, No Doubt, Mariah in her Fantasy era, early Britney, maybe even some Savage Garden (because you’re not too proud to admit that “Truly Madly Deeply” still slaps).
Then, lay on your bed, close your eyes and think about these prompts and tell me your story. Where were you during this age and what was your inner Hoe-liness shouting at you to avoid, yet you ran full-force ahead like a tea-cup puppy wrapped in an oversized red bow??
Have fun and remember the good times.
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