PICTURE PERFECT:

This school is taking away every ounce of energy I had left. Day in and day out, the monotonous routine of walking up, dragging myself onto a muggy bus, and into a place I don’t want to be in, only to return home to do work I’m entirely unmotivated to do. People who haven’t spent a day of their lives as teachers have determined what I learn and when I learn it for years on end. For ten years, I have been cramming information into my mind that I am not interested in, in order to go to college and learn a trade that I may actually enjoy if I’m lucky. However, if people were educated rather than schooled, I may actually enjoy this place that I’m required, by law, to attend every day. Sure, this may just be a rant because I’m miserable about having to take finals, but in all actuality, school hasn’t brought me any form of joy in far too long.

                So now I’m stuck, sitting on this stinky bus, with one working headphone and a compelling urge to nap when I see it; a tear dripping down the face of one of my closest friends. She seemed distant all day, but I didn’t question it because I thought she was just avoiding bugging me in my bad mood. It turns out, she was cracking under the pressure too, but I was so caught up in myself to even realize. We’re all cracking up the pressure. We’re all counting down the days for this school year to end, and for the constant race of stress signals through our body’s to just STOP.

They started off the ceremony by talking about what a beautiful life he lived. They said that he was always so open to embracing life in its entirety, and he never seemed to have a single fear. I knew better. I knew he was petrified, because he looked me in the eyes the night before he died and told me how he wasn’t ready to die. “I spent my whole life convincing myself that if you’re afraid of life that means you’re afraid of death. Truth be told, I was never afraid until I grasped the fact that in order to live, you must at some point die.” He spent that entire night describing to me in detail the way he imagines the sky will bend in the moments before it’s about to fall. I stayed up, listening to his words, absorbing his voice, imprinting the way in which his tongue rolled with every syllable so I could remember it for the rest of eternity. I would not allow myself to forget the sound of his voice, or the freckles on his cheekbones, or the way his eyes held such a deep passion for all things beautiful in this world, and he found beauty in everything.

I started towards the microphone to give a speech about how miraculous his life was. I stopped the words from coming. I couldn’t lie to these people and tell them that he died peacefully. He died scared, and in pain, because that’s the way life works. So instead, I say more towards the microphone than crowd before me, “He was a brave soul, and I hope that we find the courage to follow in his footsteps.” It wasn’t much, but it wasn’t a lie. I figured it would give them some sort of comfort that I knew I’d never be able to come across. He was beautiful in all the ways I never thought humans could be beautiful, and he was a truly eccentric person, with a soul far wiser and older than his years, but I didn’t know what to think anymore.

I still don’t know what to think of the afterlife, all I know is that when they were lowering his casket into the ground, I was not thinking of God. In those short but prolonged moments, I was not thinking of a superior being that would take his beautiful soul and carry it off into the glory it deserves. I was thinking that the eyes I loved so much were cold, and dead, and the skin I once touched was now dull and gray. I do not know what became of him. All I know is that no matter how hard I try, I will never forget his final words. “I’m not ready.”

At the meager age of eight years old, we deemed that stop sign ours. It sat at the corner that connected our two busy streets, dividing us from the hustle and bustle of the road. On our walks to elementary school with our mom’s we’d both admire that giant red octagon. It towered over our heads in all its glorious and statuesque beauty. We decided that one day, when we were tall enough to reach it, we would sign our names at the very bottom in small lettering, because we wouldn’t want it to be noticeable and make the town replace it.

Around the age of twelve, we decided we had to make a huge deal out of our graffiti, and sign our names in big lettering and neon paint all over the sign. But we wouldn’t want to put our last names, because we wouldn’t want to cops to know it was us.

Then, at fourteen or so, we started to realize that there was so much unhappiness in this world, and we wanted nothing more than to inspire people. So we decided that, if we ever did get the growth spurts that would allow us to reach the top, we would make it say “Don’t STOP Believein’”. We thought that was the best plan yet until we were

16. We were still in love with the idea we had when we were fourteen, except, this time, we decided we would sign our names. First and last, so that the cops would know who it was, because we were just so full of teenage angst. Our hopeless mindsets told us there would never be another way to leave out mark on this world. “We will never stay in this town. We can’t be tied down.” So, we played our pop punk and brainstormed how and when we’d sneak out to paint our way out of this sleepy town.

On our graduation night at 18 years old, we set out on our journey at 1 am. We never did get those growth spurts, so we stood in the truck-bed of your boyfriends pickup and began our masterpiece. We didn’t stick to the plan we’d been brainstorming for years because you didn’t get into the college of your dreams, and I was questioning what I’d major in. Instead we artfully crafted “We will never STOP.”

I still smile every time I pass it on my way to drop my kids off at school.

“Your grandmother used to love these, you know.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, when I was a kid she and I used to go on really long walks when they came out to pick as many as possible, then we’d blow them all out at once.”

And ever since that day, I decided I wanted a dandelion tattoo. There was no particular reason for it, I just really liked that day. My mom and I were sitting in my backyard on an unusually windy day, and we watched as the seeds danced through the air. They were weightless beautiful things, and it seemed that everyone had their own reason for loving them. My friend Julia told me her Nana used to tell her that they were suffering souls finally relief and pure joy. My friend Hannah always says that every time they glide off their steams, it’s a symbol of someone falling in love. My next door neighbor always hated that the one’s we blew off their steams planted too many seedlings for the “ugly weeds” to grow in his yard, but I never really liked him anyways.

The first experience I ever had with Chinese wishing lanterns was after my Uncle Rick’s funeral. We all wrote our favorite memories with him on the thin paper, and sent it off from my cousin’s back porch. I was ten and thought it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

A few years later, my dad bought ten of them off Amazon for New Year’s Eve. I saved all but one of mine, so I could save them for special occasions.

I lit one off before my first day of freshman year. It caught fire, got stuck in a tree, and we had to put it out with a hose. It ended up as a charcoal wish that once was lying in the middle of my backyard.

The year following that, I only lit off one or two. I couldn’t decide if that was because I didn’t have many special things happening in my life, or if I was just being too picky about what was special, and what wasn’t.

Then, on my brothers graduation night, I set off the remainder of the lanterns with a group of close friends, because in that day I realized, the most special things I’d ever experienced we were when I was making other people happy.

                We stumbled home from the beach at the time of night that everything seems to become a much deeper kind of quiet. The kind of quiet that makes you question your entire existence. That’s why it was so nice to have the three of them with me. We spent the short walk home talking about how on this night, the moon looked smaller than usual, as if it flew away us. But, my oh my, the stars were brilliant. I must have seen at least thirty shooting stars that night, and I ran out of wishes far too fast, but I didn’t mind because I had never been happier.

                Attempting to make as little noise as possible, we carried our beach blankets up the front steps in an effort to make as little noise as possible. We failed miserably in this department, and my aunt stirred in her drunken slumber on the couch, but it was never enough to get her up. We tiptoed to our beds and sat in silence. We all knew the others weren’t asleep, but we stayed silent. Reflecting in each other’s company, we had never felt more at home than in this rental.