Red

I want to write about being a teenager. I want to write about that moment when you’re in high school and there’s this guy and he looks like the toughest guy out there and then he looks at you and singles you out of the crowd and talks to you and you feel like you’re walking on air as you walk out of the school building. I want to write about when you get in a fight with your best friend and you end up screaming at each other because everything in that moment is so alive and vibrant and everything is being felt under a microscope. I want to write about falling in love, and getting your heart broken. I want to write about how sometimes things happen one way but when you play it over and over again in your head you change little bits and pieces of the script and then you remember it that way. I want to write about changes and snapshots of things you keep laying around like Polaroid’s and dried up flowers that you keep on a shelf in your shoe. I want to write about that one moment when everything else fades away and you’re there and you’re laughing and you’re learning how to dance again and it feels like its infinite.

 I want to write about all of these things because they are all parts of the story. They are all a part of this tapestry that is woven on the cusp of becoming something great. It’s like magic, like flashes of light and stardust. It’s breathing in and laughing and crying and flirting and being angry and feeling like your drowning and then… gasp… you exhale.

 It’s all about being brave, being heartbroken, being excited and being in love and being alive in this moment. That’s what being a teenager is about. And the bad things, they’re just pieces. Things shift and move and nothing stays the same forever, not even the things we think will ever go away.

 Everything changes, a fortune cookie told me once. Nothing is permanent. Life is short, enjoy the ride. What no one ever told me was how.