Crash and Burn

I watch her. The girl with the blonde hair. She’s small and lean. She holds herself with way more self-confidence any twelve-year-old should have. She stands proudly and defiantly. Staring in face of one of the taller boys in seventh grade. She’s yelling at him. About nothing important.  Her face is composed of want-to-be anger, want-to-be confidence, and innocence. Such over whelming innocence that it breaks my heart. If she only knew how good she had it. The work load, the innocence, the stress, her friendships. Nothing was ever as simple as it was in  seventh grade and yet I see her, the girl with the blonde hair, desperately trying to be grown up.

If she only knew how difficult it was to be grown up. To have to yell at people because they were truly bad, not because you disagreed on a minor topic. If she could know how much I envy her. I envy her innocence. Mine had been shattered long ago by a boy who spoke only the truth. I envy her daily life. Mine is consumed with work and desperate attempts to become the most normal form of average ever. I envy her friendships. Untainted by lust and anguish like mine. I envy how easy she had life, but the thing that irritated me the most about the girl with short blonde hair was that she hated it. She hated her easy life. She WANTED to be like me. To be grown up. Why would you ever want to be older? We live such lonely, depressing lives that it’s a wonder any one lives past the age of eighteen.

Everyday I wake up alone in the dark. Get ready for the day while everyone else sleeps. I eat breakfast by myself in a dimly lit kitchen. I drive myself in silence to class. I go to school, never sharing two classes with someone else. Then I drive home by myself, and do my homework in the corner office in solitude while the world carries on without me.

I continually wait for the solitude to get better. I wait for the day when I can be with my family and be innocent and smile and laugh without a care, but for me its over now. The girl with the short blonde hair still has that. Yet she wastes it away yelling at a tall boy over inconsequential things. I want to tell her. Warn her. Enjoy this happy stage of life when things are good before it goes away. Yet, I know her. I know that even if I do, she won’t listen. I could scream it at her, but she would never change her mind. It is the way of the innocent and benign. Stubbornness.

So instead, I wait. Loathing her stubbornness. I wait for her to come to the epiphany that her life is amazing. I wait for her to crash and burn. For that is the only way anyone like her will ever learn. I await her demise. Almost eagerly. I want her to feel my envy for the innocent.

One day, she will. The girl with short blonde hair. She will go through the same thing that anyone must go through. Embarrassment. Heart sickening. Stomach churning. Blood curdling embarrassment. I cannot contain my glee at her eminent embarrassment. I wonder what will happen. Will she say something unforgivable? Will she have her heart-broken? Will she make a mockery of herself? Endless possibilities flow through my head. I cannot wait for her embarrassment. Her crash and burn moment. The moment she realizes how good she had it. The moment when she understands my envy. The moment when she begins to envy another girl with short blonde hair.

I can’t wait.