I want to start off by saying that living in 2019 is not something I take for granted. I am eternally grateful for the boundless opportunities I see on a daily basis and the presence of freedom. I, however, cannot ignore that tugging feeling that I may have been born in the wrong time.

I'm talking imagined glimpses of a past life, wistful daydreams of rockabilly music, and a time that was both riotous and simpler. I am who I am because I have been shaped by the time I live in and the family I was born into, but that's not to say that I wouldn't have absolutely crushed it during the time of Elvis, civil rights, and teenage angst.

I would've soared in the fifties.

Logically speaking, I am better off living in the time I live as a woman of mixed race, both very tough categories to be placed in during the rockabilly age, but I also can't deny that there is a huge part of me anchored in that time.

Do I believe in past lives? Maybe. Part of me feels that during the rush of time I was dropped into the mix just a hair too late, that I missed my mark by forty years. I crave that aesthetic and try to get my hands on anything relating to that time. I feel as if that is where my soul belongs. A part of me feels at home and anchored in those memories that are not my own, memories of swatches of mint green and drive-in movies, of twisting dances and strawberry milkshakes.

I know I can't be the only one who believes they were born decades too late. We live in a time where we copy the trends of times before us and I feel as if that is us trying to hold on to those pieces of ourselves that feel as if we belong to a time before us. The time we live in is tumultuous and beautiful and I am so grateful to have been a part of it.

But I can't deny that part of me that sees glances of a black and white checkered floor and the blaring sound of a jukebox.