I'm Sick (PB)

I think I used to be a better person. 

 

Perhaps in the way that all humans are as children, young and innocent, full of life, have yet to experience heartbreak, incapable of being essentially, an analytical bastard.  I remember thinking the most simple solutions to every problem imaginable, not understanding what the big fuss was with all of these dumb adults and old people complaining about silly things.  For example, if a girl and a boy are together (yuck!), then when they don't like each other, or the boy is mean, they should break up.  Poof!  Problem gone!  Or if some stinky old man doesn't like his job as a librarian and wants to be a tightrope walker, then he should nicely quit and go run off with the circus.  Poof!  Problem gone! 

 

Everything was so easy.  Any problem was a little pebble that I kicked while skipping in the park wearing my pink raincoat and muddy rainbow sneakers, with my long long long golden braid swinging behind me.  The problems that I thought were unconquerable were long division and how to emotionally handle the boy next to me at lunch accidentally spilling his chocolate milk all over my lap.  Or how the heck am I going to get this stupid button on my corduroys fastened?  It's so tiny!  The material of my pants is too tight!  Agh!  What if I have to go back to class and ask my teacher to do it for me?  I'm starting to get sweaty!  How lame! 

 

It's like the roles have switched.  I can handle those problems easy.  Here, you bring the five down next to the two.  Don't cry, you're mom works at the school.  She'll wash your pants for you.  And I don't know what to tell you about that button, man.  I still can't get those. 

 

Sometimes I wish I could trade off my problems to that little girl with the sideways teeth and chubby little belly.  She knew what was up.  She was the girl who, when surrounded by a bunch of brats talking about a girl who wore weird clothes, said in the meanest voice she could muster, "Hey guys!  You should stop talking about her, because she's nice, and you guys are being mean!"  She tried so hard on everything and cared so much about her homework, tests, worksheets.  She loved to color and her dad.  Sometimes I think about that little girl and of what she would say if she knew what she had turned out to be when she got to be older.  Would she be disappointed?  Am I becoming that person she would have locked her blue eyes on and called out at the playground?  Maybe, probably.  But I do know one thing.  I have learned some stuff that little me had not quite grasped yet.  That boys can like boys and girls can like girls and it's not gross.  That kissing is more than a spit sharing session.  That music is flippin amazing.  That just because you read books instead of having fun doesn't make you cool, it makes you very uncool, the opposite of cool.  And that life sort of sucks, but then it doesn't, not really.  Not at all.