i am a poster girl with no poster
I look in the mirror and discover that I am still sixteen. My hair is parted in the same side, with a tiny lime green barrette peeking through a few loose strands. My tired eyes remind me of that night I sneaked into the kitchen at 12:30 and made coffee for the first time: sleep didn't come to me then and I ended up writing a story and actually completing it. At sixteen I was a high school senior, still on the outside looking in. I tried to disappear in a crowd of trendy outfits but who am I kidding? Even my graduation dress looked awkward compared to everyone else's. It wasn't the ugliest dress nor the most sophisticated but the mere fact that I was wearing it made me feel different all the same. What hurts more is if you know that you're neither part of the extreme lows nor highs of anything. You just float around, waiting until you find your missing piece.
It hasn't changed.
The funny thing was in the middle of reading Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones I was suddenly stricken with a kind of panic that I've never felt before. The story progressed and the characters grew older -- god, even the dog died and went to heaven -- and the thought of how time goes by so quickly flashed inside my mind. I still feel like I'm sixteen but I'm not. Here I am almost a decade later, and although I have gained many fulfilling experiences since then, I want more. Of a different kind perhaps, but more.
I hear you say you should welcome age, and get on with your life and I assure you -- I do not wish that I could turn back time, nor do I feel that at this point, my future holds nothing. I know I'm not that old and life is really just beginning but how I wish that I exist for something truly greater than "maintaining good credit" and getting that loft that I've always wanted. The thought of finding myself at 40 and realizing I've spent my life in a boring desk job without ever discovering the rest of the world scares me so. I don't just want to "grow up". I want to change the world.
It hasn't changed.
The funny thing was in the middle of reading Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones I was suddenly stricken with a kind of panic that I've never felt before. The story progressed and the characters grew older -- god, even the dog died and went to heaven -- and the thought of how time goes by so quickly flashed inside my mind. I still feel like I'm sixteen but I'm not. Here I am almost a decade later, and although I have gained many fulfilling experiences since then, I want more. Of a different kind perhaps, but more.
I hear you say you should welcome age, and get on with your life and I assure you -- I do not wish that I could turn back time, nor do I feel that at this point, my future holds nothing. I know I'm not that old and life is really just beginning but how I wish that I exist for something truly greater than "maintaining good credit" and getting that loft that I've always wanted. The thought of finding myself at 40 and realizing I've spent my life in a boring desk job without ever discovering the rest of the world scares me so. I don't just want to "grow up". I want to change the world.