Forever young and Beautiful.

I gaped in open mouthed horror in the small mirror the dental hygienist handed me. Sure enough there were large craters dotting the surface of my back molars; Creating what reminded me of the mini- moon exhibit with the large gray holes I used to climb on at the Children’s museum, only much smaller and rooted in my jaw.

It was the candy. The candy, the cough drops, the hard food I’ve happily crunched on for the past 18 and a half years of my life. All those years of ignoring my mothers warning of ruined teeth. Well its gotten me good, and now I am forever trading in my sweet tooth in hopes of avoiding crowns of silver capped over my ivories.

Maybe it was my dentist telling me how perfect my teeth are for years that made me feel as if I were immune to tooth problems. Or maybe it was just a lack of concern for the fact they would need to last me until the day that I die if i wanted to avoid the nasty removable kind that watch you from a glass while you sleep. But whatever it was that made me naive, my news flash came yesterday. The teeth eating monster roared its terrible roar, gnashed its terrible teeth, and informed me that even I was not invincible.

Being young is a dangerous thing. As we roll down our windows, tip our aviators to the horizon, and look out on our vast expanse of road to be traveled, we get secure. Our cars are still shiny, our hair is still soft, and our skin is not wrinkled. Life will go on and we forever laugh and dance and sing.

We forget that time can run out, without warning. Today as I cleaned out my car I reached down between the seats, fishing for the paper the peaked out of a corner. Her smiled jumped off the page and grabbed me by the heart as I stared down at Hannah’s funeral program. Two weeks have passed and it still doesn’t seem real. She was young and she was beautiful. She sang with the windows down cannonballed into the pool of life.

It seems to me that the ones who die young are the ones who squeeze life for every morsel it has to offer. The good die young and scrooge lives forever. And we daily realize, we are not invincible.

 

the Neverending Story

A few months ago a close friend and fellow journalist of mine posed a question that has haunted me since. It has literally kept me awake at night, staring at the ceiling; it has been the object of many a day dream, and frequently my perfect ten minutes of shower thinking time lingers on this question.

“If you had one story left to tell, what would it be?”

One story. thats it. Well it would definitly be a story of struggle and hardship I thought at first. But how can you pick one persons battle over another, what guidelines define who’s hardships are the most notable? Then I thought maybe I would tell a personal story, that way my last story would be about something I really knew. But thats a little too narcissistic for my taste. Maybe a story of happiness? Or perhaps I’d tell a story of love?

And finally I’ve decided; I can’t decide at all.

Telling the stories of our society and mankind is what I do. Its what I love. Its what I was born for. I will be daily producing answers to that question for the rest of my life.

Maybe someday I’ll find an answer. And if I don’t? That’s ok. Because sometimes the question is more important than the answer.

Sometimes the journey is more important than the destination.

 

Make a Wish.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” my friend giggled as i tightly shut my eyes and filled my cheeks with air. “My dad would KILL us if he saw this going down in his front yard.”

“Why?!” I stopped mid blow, dropped my dandelion to my side, and looked at her in disbelief.

“Because once we blow these, twenty million more dandelions are going to grow in our front yard!!” she exclaimed. I rolled my eyes and squeezed them tight and blew my wishes across her perfectly manicured lawn. She laughed and did the same.

I’ll never forget the day my mother told me dandelions weren’t flowers. And not just that, its worse. They are lower on the scale than simply just not being good enough to be considered a flower. They are weeds. Annoying, over populated, pestering, infectious weeds, that you cannot seem to eradicate no matter how often you mow your lawn, or how often you spray weedkiller.

My face sank that day as my “bouquet” of yellow and white wilted as I held it out in offering to my mom. She gave me a reassuring smile and told me it didn’t matter to her if they were real flowers, she loved them anyways.

I find it ironic that everyone wants the pretty flowers that you have to work hard to make grow. The kind you have to water, and plant in just the right amount of sunlight. The kind I always end up getting poisen ivy while planting, and that I can never seem to keep alive longer than a week. But no one wants the infectious flower, the pretty yellow that grows on its own, and spreads to everyone it touches, and even leaves magic after it dies.

Maybe we’ve got it all backwards.

As I left her house I plucked another and brought it to my face. I wished to be like the infectious flower, who leaves a little magic and  touches people even after I’m gone.

 

When it rains, it pours.

“Everything will be ok! Because you have a smiley face painted on your big toe.”

This was the first doctor language I had understood during my going-on-4-hour stay in various units of UK Med Center. Possible Meniscus tears and stabilized ACLS… 0 degrees of lateral lift compared to 10 degrees of lateral lift in my good leg…? Not so much.

This is why I’m not going to be a doctor.I speak the language of the silly irrationals, not the scientific logicals. I think In strands of happy-hopeful-isms, not in dreary pessimisms. Generally this grants me immunity from bad days, and even if crap is going down, I’m still laughing about it.

My immunity has somehow now failed me; as if I had the super power of flight and I realized that my powers had gone away mid-air after leaping off a 30 foot cliff.

“There’s a chance you might have to have surgery…” I was politely informed by the doctor whos hand rested on my leg that I really regretted forgetting to shave that morning…

“Kinda like in the game Operation, they’re getting the water off my knee huh? Except if you hit my leg my nose won’t light up…” I laughed and he smiled and patted my good leg.

Somewhere between that moment, and the death of my phone and the disappearance of my schedule, and the loss of a close-friend, and bending my leg a full 90 degrees. i lost it.

However; The sun is shining and even though I can’t play soccer, there is a smiley face on my big toe. And I know everything’s going to be alright.

 

All’s fair in war and peanut butter

“You all are zee future of our country. You are zee future leaders of our na-shan,” Mr. Karan went on with in his thick accent. I haven’t been able to place where the accent is from or what language he speaks natively, but I do know its not english, and his english reminds me of being at church when I was little and the Holy Spirit moved and all the old people spoke in tongues.

“What do you see when you look at this pick-chur?” He met nothing but blank stares as he presented us with photographs of the Middle East, slides of the conflict between the Israelis and the Arabs. He smiled slightly and slowly walked down the aisles. “Is et just too early for you to care about the world?… Someone. Tell me how to solved the conflict between Israel and Palestine?”

The familiar ritual of silence greeted me. only four weeks left of this. More Silence. I squirmed. I blinked. My neighbor fidgeted. It loomed on. I couldn’t tell if I heard a clock ticking or if it was just my imagination. All of us torn between guilt about not giving a shit about the rest of the world and desire to crawl back in bed.

And then someone caved, for the first time all semester.

“Well I saw this peanut butter commercial once…,” he began. “There was only one peanut butter sandwich left and there were two boys. And the mom said if one boy cut it… then the other boy could pick which half he wanted. And then everyone was happy because they both had peanut butter.”

Professor Karan nodded, walked over to the boy and smiled.

“If everyone could share zee peanut butter, all our worlds problems would be solved.”

Now the peanut butter sandwich I had to have is refusing to comply with my tongue and be un-stuck from the the roof of my mouth like play dough after you smoosh it to the table. And all I can picture is President Bush sitting with all the world leaders trying desperately to unstick the peanut butter plastered to the mouths that declare war, solve conflicts, and issues orders to millions of people.

Were all equal when it comes to peanut butter. Unless you’re allergic.  Then you just can’t be a world leader.

 

Its a mixed bag.

“You need Aderol.” totally snapped out of my visual trepse around the high ceilings of the library I looked across the table to meet smiling eyes with the reason I was actually studying for my geography test. Also the reason that I now shower in the mornings. He’s officially talked to me 3 times now. We’re basically getting married.

I tried to protest but just laughed.
“You have the attention span of a millisecond, which could be why you’re failing.” he went on to inform me with a devious smirk.

As we sat across from each other on the 5th floor of Willy T, laughing and then falling quiet as we read about the economic failures of the Indian Subcontinent, I decided that I really didn’t care if I ever spoke to him again, the mere fact that I had a moment with a boy this attractive was enough to spice up my morning mirror pep talks.

I was right, I haven’t really talked to him since.  And I still have a swing in my step. Man he was attractive. Or maybe the swing in my step is just the crutches.

And he’s right, I do need Aderol, not just for studying, for life. My roommate says I’m a conquerer. I find something I like or want to learn how to do, and I work at it until I’ve added it to my mastery list. And then if its not interesting enough I get bored. Which is why my career choice is so amazing, its something new and different every moment. It keeps me on my toes, always guessing, never knowing for certain. Always trying to outwit and learn something knew. Always an adventure and a creative outlet. What if, just maybe,  I found a person like that?

I think for right now I’m just going to conquer walking… without falling down the student center stairs so random strangers catch me and half arm carry me.

 

Tasteless Genetics.

I like black coffee, pickles, and rabbit food.

“This,” my roommate informed me, “means you are one of the un-tasters, according to my Biology professor.” According to her professor, we are born with taste bud genes. People who like pickles for example, do not have the genetic make- up to taste how bitter the chemicals are, therefore they like the taste.

“I am a taster.” she said. “So me being picky… really isn’t my fault. Its in my genetics!”

And then I think about if this carries over to other things as well. Maybe some people genetically feel less bitter as well.

A close friend of mine has recently been very unhappy. About everything. Life. Grades. Love. Family. Its as if there is always this very unhappy undertone to everything. Sunday morning we sat together on her couch curled up, talking about life. And she sighed, and told me she was unhappy and she didn’t know why. As a fear tears wriggled past her floodwalls, she asked me how to be happy. “What makes a person happy?” She asked.
I paused, waiting for some profound insight or inspirational thought to just roll off my tongue….
“I do things that make me happy… ” she continued.

Crickets chirped in the empty closet of my mind.

And all I could think of was how happy I was to not be the unhappy one.

“Happiness doesn’t come from things you do,” I finally managed. “Its a state of mind. Its how you perceive things. Its not something that just comes from a moment or an activity. Its just there….”

I can’t taste bitterness. I feel this is a very lucky thing.

 

I blame the walnuts.

I didn’t explain to the nice trash man the reason my wallet could be found next to an uneaten sandwich. But bags and bags later, I smiled as I picked a shard of lettuce off of my formerly pink wallet, now fading to a muted pukey color from its harsh encounter with leftover ceasar dressing. As my new friend jumped out of the dumpster, identical lettuce shards swept through the air and fell to the ground in a flurry like the snow that fell last week, and will most likely fall again soon knowing Kentucky. I wanted to hug this amazing stranger who had just swam through a dumpster full of wasted Ovids with me on this drizzly afternoon; but I realize that garbage digging friends do not hug for a very specific reason, and all I could do was tip my head up to the gray skies and laugh at how once again my day was nothing like I thought it would be.

The same gray skies spited me later as I stood on the street, water slowly creeping up my pants legs, rain drops tickling down my nose, as all the smart umbrella carries around me laughed at my stupidity.

“This is totally unnecessary.” A girl next to me smiled and side stepped to welcome me into her umbrella. For once in my life I was lost for words. I sputtered some sort of thank you and flashed her a smile.

“you are my hero” I informed her. By now my new friend had escorted me halfway to class. We started to part ways and she paused, rummaged in her bag and produced a smaller umbrella.

“Its my spare,” she smiled. “You can have it.”

There are some good people left in this world.

 

Bittersweet.

The last time I wore this shirt he kissed me bye at 4:27 on a Monday morning. He shot me a “none of that” warning look as my smile started to crumple, and as I slid out the door into the cool morning breeze our perfect 9 hours together ended. “I guess I’ll see you when I see you…” he’d said.

It is now 8:27 on a Friday night and here I sit; eating apple jacks, and reminiscing, and wondering how I could have forgotten to wash this shirt because it still smells like his room.

My neck has finally had enough and is now spiting me for the many nights I’ve slept on a flat pillow. I can’t decide if I’m more pissed off that I can’t turn my head to the right or that the main source for this silly newspaper story I’m writing won’t call me so now it will hang over my head all weekend.

As fate would have it my favorite pair of broken in jeans now has a small, but ever-growing hole on the inside right thigh. Looks like another one bites the dust. Maybe I should quit eating apple jacks?