I love the idea of being a teenage girl
To romanticize being a teenage girl is to never stop dreaming.
My room holds a thousand memories.
Ones of laughter, of tears, of promises to never be a fool again.
To be a teenage girl.
That is the question.
I love my cute little life.
How I swing out of bed in the morning and brush my teeth in my bathroom.
The one with the baby blue walls and tiling with a black border.
The blue floral curtain that matches the bath mat.
My shampoo and conditioner, body wash, and body lotion, all in a neat line of matte pastels.
I love my sea moss bottle filled with eucalyptus hand soap.
I love when I patter back into my room and am immediately enveloped in my crisp sheets.
My fluffy white muslin duvet pulls up and over my head as my hair sprawls across my fluffed pillow.
I love when I finally muster the strength to flip on a light.
It’s a green-and-blue stained-glass lamp with dragonflies patterned around the edges.
I love matching lace with lace.
I love reminiscing over each and every memory I associate with every single item of clothing in my neat little closet.
My skirts with lace trim, my jeans with rips in the butt and paint on the knees, my shirts that have passed from owner to owner, teen girl to teen girl.
I love the idea of being a teenage girl because, theoretically, it’s perfect. My curated outfit, matching thrifted purse, color-coordinated notebooks, earbuds playing weather-appropriate tunes.
It all looks
so, perfect.
Gold earrings in perfect circles can still be bent out of shape, tarnished in color.
Makeup smudges. Mascara can run. Lip liner only lasts for so long.
Those cute vintage photo booth photos that hang on my walls?
I couldn’t begin to debrief those relationships.
Closets are full of reminders of failed relationships, bad nights, messy feelings.
The cute, little, perfect, romanticized room of a teenage girl?
What about when the floor isn’t visible?
When the bed isn’t made?
What about that whole “your room reflects your mind” idea?
What does that say about the mind of a teenage girl when that silly, romanticized life becomes a battle just to look in the mirror?
But yet, the life of a teenage girl is the life of a warrior.
So here goes nothing.
I love when I’m ready for school, when my bow-adorned Uggs match the clips in my hair and mug of steaming Earl Grey tea.
I love that my routine is down to the wire and unremarkable, except for the fact that if you dream just enough, everything is remarkable.
But wait!
I’ve missed a step, breakfast.
Because somewhere in-between applying to college and studying for school I must have forgotten.
I must have forgotten that my beautiful life isn’t always so beautiful.
That in-between growing up and trying to do my best, sometimes all I could manage was crying over the things I couldn’t control.
So I forgot.
I forgot that it’s okay when the sheets stay tangled and the colors un-coordinates.
That the girl who carries the weight of the world on her shoulders only wishes she could go back to before she grew up.
I must have forgotten.
No teenage girl wants to be a teenage girl.
But one day i’ll look back.
I’ll remember how much I loved to see the colors so perfect, and patterns so picturesque.
I’ll remember the people in the old photos, not the moments that felt so big.
I’ll remember the romanticized life of me, as a teenage girl.
And i’ll remember that truly it wasn’t so beautiful.
The physical wasn’t always so beautiful.
But the time?
The time was mine, and the memories were mine, and mine alone.
So maybe, just maybe it really also was
just that
