I remember those crisp, cool green sheets... turned stuffy and damp as hot tears of fright flowed out of me, Avril Lavigne's serenades my only friend or comfort. I remember that summer when the world was screaming at me to come outside, to talk to someone--be a normal 12 year old. I also remember the endless sea of lies and excuses that I cried for myself, so that I would always have a way to avoid the world and anyone in it that didn't feel like home.
All I wanted was to go back. And quickly, too, before we were too late and people made inside jokes without me. Maybe they'd even be about me.
I remember staring out those windows full of lights, hating everything--the sounds, the scents, the patterns. I could feel some little part of me trying desperately to jump. I still don't know if it was a jump for suicide, or freedom.
I dreamed of coming back to them. Of being remembered... fixing things before they were neglected for too long.
My dream came true.
But then I remember the days when things slowly started to feel like home again. When faces were home. When I developed a "ushe," both at restaurants and for my weekend plans. I remember crying for the first time over a boy... but I remember laughing for the first time because of one, too. Those nights that taught me exactly what I will become, and yet exactly what I can't become. Making secrets for myself so that I could have some to tell, getting caught in the net they tangled, and then cutting my way out, much stronger than I was before that mess. I remember what it felt like to morph into a thespian... slowly, over time, with strenuous effort going into every step of the way. The wind in my face and the jump in my heart as I jumped into the ocean for the first time. Counting freckles and sins, unable to decide if I wanted them blemishing me or if I should avoid them. Making another best friend all the way from scratch... because the more work that gets put into them, the sweeter they seem to be.
Suddenly everything vanished.
Erased. I had a clean slate... time traveled to back then, back when I first learned how to love my surroundings. Granted, it was only for a day. A day to visit the past. People say be careful what you wish for. And while going back was in no way permanent, it was frightening--as if all of that foreverness could really be erased.
I put so much work into it. Into myself. I was just plain miserable sometimes, but I worked for those happy moments--I worked on growing as a person.
And now suddenly back then seems like yesterday, and today seems like an eternity.
Time is such a relative thing.
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