I'm sitting in the backseat on the way back from the beach with my parents and younger sister. Night Beds playing in my ears and Van Morrison playing through the speaker. All I can think is I cannot wait to be home.

This was the first time I'd ever been to the beach, so why was I ready to be back in a college town in Northwest Alabama, where all I would do is sleep and catch up on YouTube videos?

I glance at the cars beside me, passing, going faster than us. Most of them are older couples — maybe 50s to 60s — not talking, not laughing, not smiling. I cannot see into their cars to know if the radio is playing, but I come to the assumption it probably is not. There's no singing.

I'm only 20, but I often wonder when that time in my life will come. The time where I'll no longer be talking, laughing, smiling or singing along in the moments I share with others. And it terrifies me.

The past 20 years have been held with fits of crying, bits of madness, pulling out knives wherever they may fall. And I just accept it.

But deep down, I can feel myself crying out for more. For more than what I've had, more of what I want to be. I feel trapped inside of a body that does not even feel like my own most of the time.

I want to live before I no longer can. But how do I live if I've never known how? How do I let go of all the worries, if people will like the person I want to be, the person I think I am. How do I wake up and tell myself everything will be OK when it has not been for so long?