This Girl
September 16th, 2009
Yesterday, something really good happened to a couple I know. And when I say really good, I mean really good. It’s cheesy fries, high-heeled shoes and movie-ending good. I wish I could say, you know, but it’s something like a secret or something. So I can’t. But it’s r.e.a.l.l.y. good. And I was surprised. Surprised that something like this was happening to someone I knew in real life. Surprised that I got to be in on a little corner of the excitement. Surprised…just surprised.
And my surprise-ment tells me something. It didn’t tell me something yesterday, because I was too busy being surprised. But today? Today, I realized that my surprise-ment was a side effect. When did I turn into the girl who doesn’t believe in good things? Because that’s where the surprise came from. I don’t believe that good things happen anymore. Not like that. Not these fairy tale miracles. Not to me. Not to the people I know. That stuff happens in books and movies and fictional far-out lands. Not life. Not real life. Where did this girl come from? How did she get here?
This girl makes me sad, and I want her to go away. I want to be a person who hopes. I want to be a person who still believes that good things can happen. I want to be a person who is an optimist at 80 years old. I want to be a person who keeps just a touch of child-like wonder in her soul. I want to…I really do want to…but I’m not sure wanting is enough to make it happen.
And yet, I do know where this girl came from. This girl who stopped believing in good things, this girl I don’t like very much, this girl I don’t want to be but find myself in her shoes. Maybe I’m just being too hard on this girl. Maybe it will take more than a few years. Maybe it will take decades. And today, I can be okay with that sentence. Today, I can be okay with the fact that it might take decades for this girl to fade into the background. For today, I believe that the other girl, the girl I want to be, the girl who hopes, trusts, believes in good things and still has a smigden of child-like wonder, the girl I used to be…I believe she’s still inside of me somewhere, even after all these years. I believe she’s still a flickering little flame, and I’m going to keep wanting her to come out and play, and I’m going to believe that wanting it bad enough is going to make it happen. For today…
Entry Filed under: history, reflections
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