Teenage Angst I

A few weeks ago, I went back home to Little Rock for a friend's wedding.  I arrived a few days early so I could get some quality time with my parents and catch up with a few friends before the craziness started.  I am also writing a book, as you probably are aware, and made a huge mess trying to get to letters and emails that I had sent/people had sent me.  In the process, I came across this bit of angst that I had written my junior year of high school.  I thought it was hilarious and overly-dramatic.  If I have learned anything from subbing at a high school last week, it's that EVERYTHING is overly-dramatic and only adults find it hilarious.  

I will also say this:  I had clearly read too many essays in Seventeen and YM.  

However, I am trying to get a post ready for your reading pleasure (or bathroom-time reading).  In the meantime, I leave you with this bit of fluff from a sixteen-year-old Ms. Pixie.  

Cheers.

I feel like love is some mass Monopoly game, only I'm stuck in jail while everyone else goes around 5...30...105 times and gets to collect their $200, but I can't because I'm stuck on this stupid square and can't roll 1 dumb six.  It's almost as if the dice are loaded [against me].

The first time I felt like this was when we visited my cousin and his gorgeous friend Robert.  He was the same age as my sister Margaret - a year older than I was.  He was well-educated, tall, had nice hair and teeth, and a cynical sense of humor that seemed to frost his virtues perfectly.  The only problem was that he worshipped Margaret as if she were Hera herself.  And she was beautiful with her auburn hair that was thicker and and longer than mine; her eyes were just as big as mine, but green.  She had a more olive skin tone and an interesting nose that made her look as though she were some exotic princess accidentally left behind.  But I'm digressing.

One night I went with my cousin, his girlfriend, Robert, and Margaret to Taco Bell.  I made the mistake of riding back with my sister and her ever-devoted-love-slave.  Of course I ended up in the back seat while in the front they discussed poetry about the moon and how magical it was and had she ever read T.S. Eliot's work?  Why of course she had!  It was her favorite!  Really?  His too!  And so it went on and on and on.

Finally, there was a break and Robert threw, "So, Laurel, what colleges are you applying to?" casually over his shoulder, much as one would last September's features section of the paper.  I told him which colleges and universities, and really wanted to add something along the lines of "Screw U," but I didn't.

Instead, I rode the rest of the way home wishing I could be on any star I wanted, any planet, any place but here.

We got home and I mumbled, "Thanks," and got out, while Margaret stood on Love's Threshold, passed "Go," and collected her $200.