[Pictured below the essay, a postcard reading-
Dear Julia,
Being back in Frederick brought back so many images of all the versions of myself that I’ve been. My favorite: a Tim wearing a black t-shirt and bowler cap who sits perched on the cushioned seat of his pedicab. On slow nights, he’d park under a street lamp on Carroll Creek, handlebars pointed toward the reflected lights on the water and read books of essays to the hum of passing cars and quacking ducks.
I was a Tim who had just graduated from college, and I was a Tim who didn’t understand much. The beautiful thing, though, was that I was a Tim that didn’t need to quite yet.
All my best,
Tim Kuhn]
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My twenties were completely unfair. Every success was borne out of an urgent, desperate need of escape, and it was only ever granted at too-high a cost.
And it was always so lonely.
I like to remember the Tim I wrote about on this postcard, shown below, written way back when I was 23 and the years between then and now hadn’t happened yet.
Back in that moment, I was wearing a bowler cap and reading a book of essays on my pedicab, parked under the warm glow of Carroll Creek’s lamplights. I reluctantly put my bookmark in its page and tucked the book away, before I backed up my cab and then pedaled away toward all the people on Market Street.
Toward every single one of the them.
Pedaled right into the future that is today, where , actually, hey, I did it.
I finally figured it out.
I figured out:
1. That Kevin and I would one day be free.
2. That they would never be able to stop me, no matter how hard they tried.
3. That I’d make a lot of good friends. Even some who would teach me to see an angry red, to see how incredibly green I once was.
4. That the world couldn’t stop me, no matter how hard it tried.
5. And that, a decade later, I would be a man, walking straight-backed and dignified into a coming new decade.
Thanks for sticking with me this long, everybody.
I’m excited to be 30 🤗
#birthdayboy #instagay #MAGA
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