Wednesday, January 8, 2014

How to Wreck Your Resolutions Three Days After January 1st: An Autobiography by Me

“Next year's words await another voice.” 
-T.S Eliot 

Hating myself was a habit of mine this year and I absolutely admired it. Assuming that self-loath was what gave me my brilliant character, my bubble of modesty burst, and all I had left was days until the New Year with absolutely no recollection of what I've actually done in 2013. There are some vintage selfies of my wildest moments of this year, but all of them include a bathroom backdrop or me scarfing down PF Changs. This is what fun looks like in the eye of a fourteen-year-old, not so much in the eyes of a fifteen-year-old girl who hysterically chokes on her own jokes.  What are we doing with our lives?

I don't see school as the cause to my melodramatic breakout of boredom. It's me. It's my exaggerated joy of going to the mall, or my unrealistic admiration to watch movies all weekend. What if I leave high school and the only evidence of my existence is prom? My mom's never been an avid story-teller, ironically, but do I really know her? She's never told me about her first kiss, how she met my father, what she was like pre-marriage, or if she's anything like I am now; it's horrid, and hopefully this warped idea of authority won't reflect off of me. How am I supposed to trust that she knows what she's saying? "She's your mother", yes, but who is she?

What if I morph into her?

Worse; what if I am her?

What if I'm dull, average, and enjoy buttered popcorn much more than I should? Is this what defines me? There's nothing I've done that has defined who I am, not an award nor book that has made me a household name. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily, but the only resolution I could possibly follow through with is defining myself without the compulsive need to give up on the effort of doing so. I'm not really sure if I've given up yet.



1 comment:

  1. Once again, your writing had me entranced the entire time. I think you should ask your mother those questions, and I may call mine to ask her as well!

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