There’s no one in this world who knows everything about me and I don’t know everything about anyone else. That’s normal but when I stop to think about it…how incredibly isolating.
As a child, I set up a tent in the living room to raise my adopted family. I was always alone, always in the middle of the forest, always solely tasked with loving my babies. I pretended to be eighteen.
My mother one day started crying because she never baked cookies for me.
I dream of escaping this world and hiking for six months. I think pushing all of my boundaries at once would be life-changing; I want it to reveal how strong I am. But then again, I have panic attacks from leaving my bedroom.
Pluto is no longer a planet.
I was a pirate in a play where we used fake guns. When it was put into my hand, I cried. It felt like I was holding death.
There are so many movie moments in my life. Driving through the fog in a light blue convertible singing old pop songs. Waking up and smiling at the love of my life in the soft morning light. A hole punched in my kitchen wall. Giggling girls splashing through a creek under towering redwoods. A first kiss on a hilltop surrounded by twinkling lights. Landing in New York with suitcases full of my belongings. Daisy chains at my father’s funeral.
On Christmas day in 1914, German and British soldiers stopped fighting. They emerged from their trenches, sang songs, exchanged gifts, played soccer. The next day they continued killing.
On the way back from Mendocino, driving through foggy forest with the heater blasting, my coach, Rosalind and I were the only ones awake. He told us that we should marry really rich men so we could work for him and have our own swim team. We said we would.
I have running-away moods.
Genghis Kahn removed 700 million tons of carbon from the air. It was because he killed so many people and planted so many trees.
I had a dream where I walked through the “Valley of Death” and all around me were rotting crosses. I was trying to find the one Jesus died on.
In third grade, I made my best friend laugh so hard she got a bloody nose. It made her laugh harder.
Your brain starts to deteriorate at 27 years old.
We tried to take Luna trick-or-treating since they don’t celebrate Halloween in Japan. No one gave us candy since we were too old. So instead, we drove to the beach, took off our clothes and jumped into the midnight Pacific.
Peyton’s brother died last summer and someone gave her a plush, stuffed heart. When I came home this weekend, she passed it on to me since she thought I needed it more. It was amazingly sweet but it made me worried. Am I really that sad?
I wish I could exist without a body.
Author: Michela Herbert
Email: [email protected]
Author Bio: Michela Herbert is an aspiring writer from the California Bay Area. You can find her trying to soak up the sun, exploring new trails, rocking socks and sandals and guzzling coffee! She wrote for HerCampus Barnard and dreams of leaving everything behind for the ultimate adventure.
Link to social media or website: Instagram @mic_klemore
Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash
