1. Be freshly eighteen and desperately itching for a life far from home.

2. Pick UIUC in Champaign, a good three hours from Batavia. Far enough for a new start, close enough that you might miss your old life.

3. Chug companionship on weekdays, drive home alone on weekends. Squeeze school in between.

4. Lie to your parents. Tell them you’re well-adjusted. Happy.

5. Skip class. Fill your time instead with boys that let you inhale intimacy but dissipate with the vapor on your lips. Both leave a bittersweet taste.

6. Withdraw from all your classes. COVID-19 made you do it, not the sickness in your head.

7. Start fresh next semester. Get sober. New boyfriend, new apartment. New you.

8. End the semester with the old you. Withdraw. Restart.

9. Waste another semester. Hell, a full year! Four fresh starts, flushed down with fucking tequila.

10. Forget the state capitals by the time you’re twenty. You used to know them all, when you were wide-eyed and three years old. Recited them religiously, as if salvation could be found in the vowels of Honolulu. It could not.

11. Come to your senses. Get sober. No, really. Still smoke weed.

12. Attend class. Get decent grades. Stay at a job longer than three months.

13. Slip up. Catch yourself. Change majors. Something that’ll make you happy? Content.

14. Graduate a year after you should have with a degree you’re not proud of. That’s okay. Your parents are more or less proud.

15. Feel that itch again. Stay in Champaign, despite your parents’ protests. You know what’s best for you, now.

16. Keep chugging. On weekends, too, now that you’re not driving home.

17. Forget the states, too, by the time you’re twenty-two. You couldn’t possibly name all fifty by now. Maybe you peaked at three years old. Maybe you won’t ever be as good.

18. Realize your body is not your own. Your life is not your own. There are too many connections to sever. Don’t kill yourself after all.

19. Break up with Stoner Boyfriend #2. Move home at Christmas. Get sober. Actually, this time.

20. Try to be good. Really try. Fail sometimes.

21. Love your parents. No, really. Love after hating for so long you don’t remember why. Wish you could have chosen love sooner.

22. Cut ties. Reconnect. Learn to love all the knotted junctions. Forgive when they fray.

23. Enjoy your downslope. Maybe you peaked at three years old. Maybe you won’t ever be as good. Maybe you can still be good, though.

Maia DeGuzman is a student, a daughter, a lover, and a reluctant optimist. Outside of studying Environmental Studies and Sustainability and Creative Writing, you can usually find Maia daydreaming about the small worlds within our larger one.