I’m turning 24 soon. Allegedly.
Which means my prefrontal cortex is nearly done developing. Allegedly.
Last night I woke to the wind carrying the balmy coolness of Lake Pichola right into my bed. I’ve been writing a lot here. Sleeping naked with the big bay windows open. Somehow, that feels very 24.
Some nights I’m ancient. The moon glowing low in my belly. Spine curved. Bones humming with dusk.
Other nights I’m brand new and breathless.
But more than anything, I feel like a woman.
A few days ago, I caught myself in one of those moments where the world seems to have rearranged itself around you. I was barefoot, hair still wet from the lake, eating street-side aloo palak off a chipped ceramic plate.
I felt weightless, head tossed back laughing with a woman whom I met a few weeks ago, who has since become one of the people in the world who knows my mind best. We come from such different corners of the world, yet somehow, sitting on plastic stools in the golden spill of an Udaipur sunset, we are the same.
I feel like I’m finally settling into myself. Not just my body, but this whole unruly, radiant thing that is femininity.
This city opened me, softened my edges. Maybe it’s the water. Maybe it’s the way women here walk with jasmine in their hair, spines straight, eyes steady. Maybe it’s the monsoon air, the conversations that unravel long into the night, or the fact that for the first time in a long time, I’ve stopped bracing myself.
Over the past two weeks, I’ve had more heart-deep conversations about womanhood than I can remember having in years. Not the performance of it, not how we dress it up or quiet it down, but the essence. What it feels like. What we’ve had to shed to grow into it. What we still carry. What we’re reclaiming.
Conversations swell with rage, then softness. We speak of war and worship; desire and freedom. All of it tumbling between us, carving new channels in the quiet.
Here we take slow sips of whiskey and let our eyes linger over the lake. We lean against the balcony and hush our voices out of reverence, the words belonging only to the space between us. We rest our heads on each other’s shoulders and snuggle tight into the same shawl when the welcome crispness of evening finds us. Throw our arms out into the wind when the motorcycles carry us into the mountains.
Wild. Free. Unfolding.
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