When I look at myself, I see a question mark. Right smack dab in the center, and brighter than any motivational quote smeared across the mirror in the red lipstick. A vibrancy I can't even wear, because as cool as it may be to rekindle the idea of being a vampiress in the bedroom, outside all you are is the person whose nickname was vampire girl all through middle school.

Ok, not you most likely. That was just me, and it stuck pretty hard.

That is who I was after all, a young adult novel tucked gratefully into the curve of my elbow. Now a days, my mind is chalk full of more literature titles than tips on how to survive a werewolf attack (though that is still there too. Some things one can never forget), and the drawer of my desk is plentiful of both multi-colored pens and shades of lipstick that do not make me look like the undead. It is all progress, transition forward one step at a time like all the old proverbs preach. Yet what is that, then? Is that...fear?

Of course not.

I look at myself in the eye and say so with the mantra of a far more badass heroine than Bella Swan, “My name is Kendra Mase, and I am not afraid.”

My soulless eyes tell me otherwise.

This, I figure, is what happens when one is asked a few too many times growing up what they wanted to do or be in ten years. Instead of snapping like a toothpick in a detoxing chain smoker’s mouth, I snapped myself into a punctuation mark rarely on the page of novels, but lingers after each line in the minds of all readers.

What next?

Now that I have placed myself in the providigal “real world,” the novel of my life seems to have run out of words I have just begun to be comfortable reading aloud. Life handing me a pen, I have to shake the weight of it to keep the ink running. Keep the lipstick from fading.

So, what is next? I do not have an answer. I do not have much but the hope that my story will keep going with the greatest plot twist the world has ever seen even once my hand begins to ache. Since even though I see a question mark in that mirror, I also see opportunity. I see the wide open spaces for pessimists like me that smile too much and try to convince themselves that they don’t.

I see a writer. I see a dreamer who spends just enough time with her head in wonderland. I see a girl who leans forward into her reflection to not get a better selfie, but to see if she is pursing her lips enough while practicing the French she hopes to use at a real cafe with real amazing people. All curved and contorted into the best question in the world.

What’s next?

It is up for us to decide. In that mirror I see me, and the daunting challenge of all I desire to be. I see maybe a good standalone with an cliffhanger of an ending that is me, watching the sunset. A best selling sequel to tell you all how it all rises. Again and again, with each glorious question of life that may never be answered in the way you guessed from the summary.

If you already skimmed to the last few chapters though, I encourage you to share the spoilers. Happy endings after all, they are so rare.