so i was sitting in my non-fiction creative writing (swoon!) class last monday night.

and it becomes apparent that for four of us, we would have our first assignment due this coming saturday morning.

thinking that people would just be killing to go first, i shoot up my hand earnestly and volunteer to go first.

i. am. the. only. one.

but no, let me continue, it gets sadder.

it’s a minimum seven page writing piece that can be on anything at all. i got heart palpitations of excitement when i heard about this assignment.

mine was seven pages before i double-spaced it. it’s now a big momma at thirteen pages. working title is “i’m allergic to you, and other misadventures”.

and i’m already done, three edits, and proofreads later, it’s really done. it’s not due for two more days.

thirteen pages, guys. my first week of classes and i am bound to have sixteen new enemies as i bring my dorky self to class for them to pick my piece apart next monday night.

i am rory gilmore. hear me roar.

dear future man friend,

just one little note.

eye kisses are the bomb.

that is all.

sincerely,

me.

   

-carol ann duffy.

if my eight year old self could see what i did last week, she’d be shocked, slightly disturbed in fact.

you see, when i was seven years old, i sat my loosed-tooth self on my couch waiting to hear the soothing whirring sound of my mom’s car entering our driveway. it was the afternoon of my 1st grade class’ christmas pageant and she promised me a brand new hairstyle to present to my friends at the pageant. christmas tree patterned stirrup pants AND a new hair cut?! i was on cloud nine.

another detail to note, is that my mom is very well loved in my hometown. from a young age i always strived to get to the level of awesome my mom got to. she made grocery shopping so inconvenient, because she was stopped my admirers, left and right. i remember thinking that if i ever had more people approach me at the grocery store than my mom, then i would know i had reached my goal. i’ve only had this happen once, but you best believe i wrote down that date in my journal. keeping this in mind, being well liked usually meant that people always wanted to give her discounts or free things.

like the barber. who gave me a bowl cut. just a few short hours before my 1st grade christmas pageant.

i remember sitting in the sticky pleather barber chair prior to the cut, swirling myself around and around, not knowing what my fate would soon hold. as my nausea heightened with each spin of the barber chair, i couldn’t imagine anything ruining my day. the barber finally spun me away from the mirror, so i could only imagine what the chunks of hair flinging off of my head could possibly mean. after 20 minutes of agony, he spun me once again in the direction of the mirror. i looked up, and then quickly looked down at my hair-covered stirrup pants. why was there a little boy in a dress looking back at me, i thought to myself. i am going to cry really hard in this barber shop, i thought once more. me want honey comb, i thought at last.

i bawled the whole way home. i wailed and wailed until a mondo drink was in my hand. how could this happen to me? i was so close to looking like an olsen twin, that it was almost eery. now i looked nothing like one of the girls who would be invited to one of the olsen twin’s slumber parties or adventures that i always watched obsessively on vhs.and gosh darn it, i wanted to help the olsen twins escape from a volcanic eruption, and have a pizza party. i looked like my name would be mavis. or gertrude. whose family had a sofa set that was covered in plastic fabric protectors. who ate vienna sausages at lunch.

needless to say, my sassy pants 7 year old self still went to the christmas pageant. and my hair eventually grow out into a luscious white girl afro that provided much comic relief in middle school and high school. and like the photo above suggests, i have decided to go back to my bowl cut roots. except, this time the hair-wizards over at hair cuttery tamed my mane much better than the well-meaning barber friend of my mom .

and i adore it. i feel like a free woman. while my hair was my comfort as a seven and eight year old, cutting it off on a whim has been quite freeing. i feel like i am more in touch with the 8 year old who sassily did hand stands whenever possible. and didn’t care if her stirrup pants matched her dress that day.

and gosh darn it, i still do want honey comb.

“heart have no pity on this house of bone:
shake it with dancing,break it down with joy.
no man holds mortgage to it; it is your own;
to give, to sell at auction, to destroy. “

-edna st. vincent millay.

get on lovely double decker bus to nyc. get “crunk” off of kombucha tea. choke down the delicious vinegar-y taste of said kombucha as you indulge in some good teen fiction. get incept-a-grammed by your favorite bros from high school as you down a veggie burger and watch portlandia.

prance across brooklyn with aforementioned bros. stumble across nyu’s department of linguistics and have a nerdgasm. go into what might be the most unusual place i have ever been to in soho. survive the nyc subway system by yourself (!!!!)

get smitten with columbia university. down multiple cups of tea and begin planning your escape from the northeast. make fun of guy friend’s rat tails.

realize you are sort of obsessed with creepy churches at night. go to the strand bookstore and have a seizure over their children’s lit section. begin to understand that the northeast’s winters don’t play around, they are colder than a witch’s teat. stumble upon a german-austrian art museum, get tempted by the sight of “quark” (one of my favorite german words, it means “soft cheese” and is so fulfilling to say) on the cafe menu.

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make derp-y faces in front of the library you wanted to see the most, that you might have had on a list entitled “libraries to see before you keel over” for a few years now. spot a dismembered lobster and immediately miss the great state of massachusetts. make “home alone” references in central park that only you get. gallivant with lady friends and thaw out on your bus back to bean town, rinse and repeat.

it happens. we all do it. we get further and further away from our glue-eating selves.

the version of us who would stick up to their bullies if they ripped your penguin costume (true story. i hit the chump with my pencil, repeatedly). who dreamed of living in houses with trampoline floors. who thought mastering her barbie veterinarian computer game and watching “emergency vets” was equivalent to a college degree. who couldn’t be held back from jumping into puddles. skating down steep hills with almost definite skinned knees in sight. sending complicated, colorful to the point-of-inducing-seizures love notes with no shame lingering within the composition notebook pages.

and i’m glad i am 20.9 years old. i get to run around the city past my bedtime. sleep in a full sized bed with as many pillows as i want. blast my music. go to concerts by my self. know how to put on mascara correctly (at least, i think so?) boys no longer have cooties. coffee tastes good to me, instead of black sludge my dad would always put in his thermos before heading out for the day. i’ve thankfully grown out of my phase of putting ranch dressing on everything, but i still miss the vestiges of my 8 year old self. in a way, i feel like she was the most authentic me. in a way, i still feel like i have clutched little pieces of that little girl’s spunk in my hand, even at 20.9 years old. i mean, i still adamantly wear dresses over my pants. if that doesn’t show that i am still 8 years old, i don’t know what will.

thus, my eight year old self project. these will be little tasks i think the 8 year old girl that still lives in me would be proud of. i mean, what’s the point of the freedom of adulthood if i can’t live out the dreams of a wee little mackenzie?

that means taking those ballet classes. and going to a place that has trampoline floors (more places than you might expect!) go ice-skating all the time. send a love letter, or three. sing in public. and volunteering with an animal shelter, so my obsession to animal planet was not done in vain. go see chincoteague island and the cherry blossoms.

and i encourage you all to do the same. i think we owe it to the eight year old little girls we once were, don’t you? what did your eight year old self want to do more than anything?

“you’re sad because you’re sad.
it’s psychic. it’s the age. it’s chemical.
go see a shrink or take a pill,
or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll
you need to sleep.
well, all children are sad
but some get over it.
count your blessings. better than that,
buy a hat. buy a coat or a pet.
take up dancing to forget.”

-margaret atwood.

homeland.

soulsister.

‘

ethereal.

lovely.

dreamworld.

obsession.

jittery.

womanizer.

disappointment.

mischief.

chuckles.

puppythief.

sassy.

sister.

sunday.

goodbye!