16

Fifteen is a bothersome age.

At fifteen, I’m not old enough to drive or have a real job or go to prom. I’m still a kid.

And yet I’m told fifteen is too old to go around barefoot or to have water balloon fights or tea parties or imaginary friends. (I do all those anyway, but that's beside the point.)

Bother.

When I was three I really wanted to be five. Five was a magical age. Five was when you could play with the markers, when you could use the scissors once in a while, when you could stir the brownie mix for mom. If I could only be five, I thought, THEN I would be happy. Then I would have it all.

But it turns out, when I was five and could do all of these wonderful grown up things, I still wasn’t satisfied. I wanted to be seven. If I was seven, then I would be older than Isaac. And if I was older than Isaac – suddenly, a whole new world of possibilities opened up. If only I was seven…

There’s this funny thing that happens when you get older. Somehow, everybody else gets older too. Rats. So there I was, seven years old, and two weeks later Isaac turned nine.

Rats.

The day I turned ten everybody was very proud of me and talked about double digits (I had no clue what that meant) and growing up and “young ladies”. But really, nothing exciting happens when you turn ten. There is not much that makes ten year olds better than nine year olds. They are practically the same, only a little bit taller and a little bit snobbier.

Ten was not an exciting year.

Ten was the year that I decided that I wanted to be sixteen. If you are sixteen then you can drive yourself to the movies and watch Winnie the Pooh all by yourself and stand in line with the grownups and buy  popcorn with money that you take out of a purse and paint your toes and wear makeup and work at Maggie Moos and get free ice cream and all the boys will fall in love with you and you won’t even notice.

I really really really wanted to be sixteen.

If you are sixteen then you are a grown up, but you don’t have to deal with college or getting married or any of that unimportant junk. If you are sixteen then you can look down at all of the little ten year olds and say, “Ha! Kids!” and then play hide and seek with them and try very hard to look like you are not having fun and nobody will say anything about it (though they all laugh at you behind your back).

Even the word, Sixteen, sounds like magic. It sounds exciting. It has this ring to it, this crisp grown up edge that is music to my ears. It sounds like a commercial. “Get your Sixteen today! Only nine ninety-nine ninety-nine!” Sixteen sounds too good to be true. Like nothing is impossible. Like you can wear high heels and not fall over. Like you own the world.

Oh, Sixteen…

Right now I am fifteen. Only fifteen. Caught in the middle, between grown up and child. It really is a bothersome age. I mean, I’m enjoying it and all, but nobody respects you for being fifteen except the five year olds who can’t count that high. Fifteen is nothing very special.

In six months I’ll be sixteen. In six months I’ll be an adult, overnight. Like this magical metamorphosis. A kid one day, an adult the next. I can’t wait.

Oh, Sixteen…

P.S. All the sixteen year olds tell me that sixteen is lame and they can’t wait to be eighteen, and the eighteen year olds tell me that eighteen is nothing great and they can’t wait to be twenty-one, and the twenty-one year olds tell me that they all want to be twenty-five, and anybody over twenty-five tells me that they wish they were my age again.

Bother.

Maybe I will just stay fifteen forever instead. 

Just Abbie

I have always wanted to introduce myself with,

“Hello. My name is Abbie. I’m awesome.”

Except, it isn’t quite true. Surviving the ninth grade and three older brothers is definitely an accomplishment, but awesome?

I guess, “Hi. I’m Abbie. I’m weird.” will just have to do.

People generally like me. They smile when I walk into a room and say sweet things about me and laugh at my jokes, even when they aren’t particularly funny. Of course, it might all be an act. But they seem very genuine. I believe they really do like me!

Honestly, I have no idea why. I can be a real jerk sometimes. I’m self-centered and arrogant, jealous and over competitive, insecure and fearful. I’m very, very selfish.

Usually, when people introduce themselves, they tell you all the good parts.

“Hi. I’m Joe. I’m nice, mostly. I play soccer. I get good grades. I don’t sleep with my teddy bear very much anymore. Last year, I broke my arm and didn’t even cry.”

And yet, there is so much more to Joe than that. He has a good side, of course, a side that says Please and Thank You and Yes Ma’am and No Sir. But Joe also has a bad side – the part of Joe that enjoys pulling his sister’s hair, even when he knows he’ll get a spanking. Then, of course, there is that in-the-middle Joe who can’t make up his mind whether to be a Good Joe or a Bad Joe. You know that creepy Jekyll and Hyde thing in that one book by Robert? I think Joe has a little bit of that going on. It’s like there’s this constant war between obedient Joe and the Joe who wants to slam doors just to make his mom angry.

The good side of Abbie gives me nice, warm, fuzzy feelings sometimes. Like a man petting his dog.  I tell myself, “Nice Abbie. Good Abbie! Does Abbie want a treat?”

But then there are those days when obeying my good side means staying safely inside the fence, even when the grass is greener on the other side.

I hate those days.

Those are the days when my Bad Abbie talks to me. She whispers, “Look at that grass. So green, so soft, so perfect. Who is good Abbie to keep you from it? You’re stronger than her, you know.”

And all of a sudden the whisper grows to a constant nagging. “Only five minutes. Five minutes! Good Abbie wouldn’t mind if it was only five minutes. The pen will be right here for you to jump back into. No harm done! Only five minutes! I start pacing back and forth, my brain screaming. “ONLY FIVE MINUTES!” Bad Abbie sings.

But there is still another voice. A quiet, “No.” No fancy arguments. No dangerous threats. Just, “No.”

I jump the fence. And guess what? Bad Abbie was right. The grass is beautiful. Lush, green, soft. I roll in it, breathe it in, revel in my freedom.

It’s perfect.

Well, almost perfect. There is still a Good Abbie inside me, saying, “NO. Get inside the pen. This isn’t worth it.”

I shut her up with more arguments. Excuses. “Not worth it? Smell this grass! Feel it! How could life get better than this?

What could possibly happen?”

You know, meeting new people is a real pain. Somehow you have to convince them that you are better than you really are. You have to get across the awesomeness of yourself without letting any of the Bad show. You have to pretend to be something you aren’t.

Sometimes I am so good at lying, I even convince myself I am awesome. But to be honest, it just is isn’t true. At the end of the day, I am just me. Just Abbie.