A Future Life

I think about the things other people are doing and I feel so pinned down. Is it by my parents? My age? My country? My lack of a drivers license? My appearance of age? Coincidence? Era? Gender? Some combination seems likely, as theres always someone with the same restraint who seems to be doing more. There are people less free than I, but I just want to make my own choices and do cool things... Things not even that exciting but little things like going down to the bakery to pick up some bread or having a regular job or... I don't know, dating normally? Go out to the park and hang out? Instead I... Do nothing... Prepare for a future life... I sit and study; economics, foreign languages. I say I'll use them someday, but I won't ever unless I get out of this house... out of this place.

My mom tells stories of roaming and hanging out with everyone as if I'm pathetic not to do the same, I complain that I couldn't if I wanted to. She says of course, times have changed. My era. It's not right. My dad tells stories of being a boyscout, of spending nights alone in the woods and building his own lean to's, of finding a mountain lion's den and being attacked by a strange valley wind. I complain that in Girl Scouts we're not even allowed to be at the shower house without an adult, even in pairs at the age of 16. I complain that in Girl Scouts we can't stand nor sit but must KNEEL in a canoe for the overbearing idol of safety. For all the good it does us, we have no better record than the boys, and they get to have fun in all of it. I used to spend hours trying to kiss my elbow, because I heard it would turn me into a boy.

Someday. I'll be out of high school. Maybe out of college. I'll have friends. Real friends. I'll have a boy. A real boy. No one will care that I'm short, no one that matters. I'll look my age. I'll be brave and wear short shorts and cute shirts and nice make-up and sometimes bikini's and people will see me. In this future life, I'll travel, I'll see the world, I'll do all those things. Wander. Roam. Explore. Live. Not in video games, not in stories, not in dreams of tomorrow. Those only last so long. Then things will happen.