“If love were easy, everyone would have it” Emma wrote. The 16 year old girl is writing in her journal like she always did before going to bed. Her eyes wander away from the page while she scowls. Her own cliches disappoint her, but she keeps on writing. Because what’s the point of meticulously documenting everyday of your life if you stop every time you hate yourself. If that were the case Emma would be less of a girl who writes in her journal and more of a girl who does literally anything else…Pretty much all the time.
“If I had to say anything to future me about love it would be this: just let it happen. Stop trying so hard. The amount of time and effort you put into falling for the right guy has just left you falling. You know that feeling you get when you’re woken up suddenly after getting thrown off a cliff or pushed out of an airplane in a dream? Well, my entire life can be summed up in that moment.”
She looks up again from the book she has been keeping since she was 11. It was raining outside. Which made sense – why would it be a clear night’s sky? That would just ease the process of longingly looking toward the stars and pondering her existence. But no. It was raining and cloudy and her life was over…or whatever.
She looked back down and put her purple inkjet pen to the page, “I live for moments of change but change is the scariest thing in the world to me….I bet a lot of people on their death beds, if asked what their favorite memories were, would come back with something amazing. Some exuberant snippet of their life that lifted them up to a height that was so out of this world gravity lost hold. Because what is the search for happiness other than your fight against gravity? It’s keeping you down when all you’ve ever wanted to do was fly…okay that sounds insane. Please, someone punt my head like a football…for the greater good.”
She exhaled and fell back onto her pillow, her journal now above her and her pen upside down, “If writing upside down makes me one step closer to an astronaut I implore whoever finds this journal in 100 years to call the embassy…or anybody really who knows Buzz Aldrin’s number. I bet that guy would appreciate what’s happening in a 16 year old girl’s bed…nope, that sounded weird. I retract that previous statement BUT I REFUSE TO CROSS IT OUT. I have principles. They aren’t quite visible to the naked eye, but they’re around here somewhere….Also I just remembered Buzz Aldrin is like a billion years old so the chances of him being alive in 100 years is slim to none. One could hope, I guess. And I shall!”
She adjusted herself once more, and propped her left arm up, placing the journal down on her bed. Her gaze returned to her window – full of rain, and subtle street lights.
“I feel as though I’m living inside a water painting where everything is melting away except for me…”
She closed her journal and placed it on the ground. Her hands reached for her covers so she could tuck herself in tight, while staring straight at the sharp popcorn ceiling.
“I’d like nothing more than to melt away” she said out loud to no one in particular. She laughed. Her melodramatic moments amuse her. And since she lived for those moments she embraced them with vigor.
“Or maybe not. Maybe I should stay right here, you know, just in case…If the world is melting…let it melt. I’ll be right here, world!” She let out a big yawn and shut her eyes tight.
“I’ll be right here.”
Ryan Brady 