growing pains

Because it's like nothing matters except for every single thing you do, and you're walking to class and you're keeping your head down and you're praying that you finally get to move seats because that guy that wears his big headphones around his neck every day but never listens to anything still hasn't realized that you don't need to be warned when the teacher walks by while you're on your phone because the teacher doesn't give a damn, and neither do you. And like Holden said, "All you do is study so you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses." And then you go home and you do everything you can to make you feel like your life is completely different, like watching some stupid show that you can't get enough of, or stalking people you don't even know on the internet and you can't stop wondering what it would be like to be an entirely new person -- just for a day. Because you've been you for seventeen years and you're going to be you for eternity and it's just so damn boring living your life in that moment before you start the car or turn off your shower head. And every day you wake up and think maybe today will change my life forever and every night you go to sleep almost certain that it didn't. Because even though you have no plans for tomorrow, you still have to make time to think about applying to colleges, but since there's no one forcing you, and you have that big old bed to yourself and a totally different world at your fingertips you decide what's one more day? And you actually have a point, because even though they say you can't predict the future, you kind of can. And you know that it doesn't matter what you do today, because everything will still be there tomorrow, and you almost hate that, but in the end, you're grateful. It's just that nothing is the same and nothing will ever be the same except for you. And you can't wait until you're 21 and you're at least doing something that matters to you or to the rest of the world, and maybe you've made a friend or two, and maybe they like chocolate peanut butter milkshakes just as much as you, although you wouldn't count on it. Because your brother taught you how to make them, just like he taught you to be honest, and to say what you're thinking even if it will make you cry. And he always takes you on all the scary rollercoasters, because he always challenges you to be better, and only because he knows you're capable. And you miss him, and you miss going to Disneyland and you miss toilet papering and playing board games and you don't know where everyone went or when they left so now you're sitting in front of the tv, and sometimes, when you really miss them, you pretend like they're right there next to you, and you tell them the stories you know they'd love, and you sing all of their favorite songs and you have a really good time until you realize that you are what you've always been: a stage 5 clinger with a couple of dogs and a hankering for Big Gulps.