"I die."
For some reason I say it all the time-when things are too cute, too funny, to heart-wrenching, anything in excess garners the use of the most excessive state of living (or lack thereof).
I suppose what I mean to say is that my body can't physically take just how cute/awesome/sad/horrible/great/perfect the thing I'm talking about is and I die.
Apparently, Rachel Zoe uses this catchphrase also. But, I digress...
In the same vein, I've taken to falling completely flat on the ground. I've done this three times in my life so far and thus the magic spell of three has been fulfilled and it's become an affectation which has become a habit.
The Three Events in which I fell flat on the floor, By Uzma
- Someone was showing everyone a really ugly picture of me so I fell on the floor and wailed
- Someone stole my beloved "Make Love not Horcruxes" shirt from the dryer and I crumpled into a heap on the laundry room floor and wailed
- This morning, I poured myself a heaping bowl of fruity pebbles, which are NOT available at school, and then there was NO MORE MILK, someone put an empty carton back in the fridge! So I crumpled into a pile on the kitchen floor and, you betcha, I wailed.
For some reason this excess of theatrics is funny to me, even though I don't laugh whilst taking part, I know that I do these things for other people's laughs. Anything for a cheap laugh=story of my life.
I die.
On another note, it's so wonderful how something as simple as lighting a fire in the fireplace makes everything a million times better. Maybe it's the familiar glow of the flames, the warmth, the smell, the crackling, or even all of your senses being entertained at once by that old, conflagrant, friend. The connotations associated with the open fire are so deliciously wholesome and homey and friendly and just giggly and cookies.
A fire is cookies.
Factor in the delicious cinnamon smells wafting from the kitchen, the bustling hub-bub of family, the hoy ploy and hullaballoo, and is there anything better than the holidays?
The absolute absence of school worries, the not knowing what day it is, the ridiculous amounts of time spent asleep or partially asleep...the big delicious beds that you won't die if you roll out of, the general happiness that emanates from everyone and everything: it's the magic of the holidays!
All of the specials on the television, timeless, that have been airing since you were a child... I mean I never realized just how short these specials are. The animated version of The Grinch is only THIRTY MINUTES LONG. When I was a kid, it felt like hours. That just goes to show how much we grow up, and how much time really means to us as we grow older. My attention has the capacity to spend hours and hours on the internet doing literally nothing at all, but when I was four, I couldn't sit still for thirty minutes unless the television was airing bright colors and cartoons. Where's that little Uzma gone now? Where is the little girl who couldn't sit still for a minute? Who could run around for hours and never get tired? Where is the little girl who dreaded going to bed and always begged to stay up for five more minutes? What happened to waking up before everyone and sneaking down to watch cartoons and run around? I used to find joy in the smallest, silliest things, and right now as I watch my little cousins running around with toys that hardly do anything entertaining, yet they are still having the times of their lives, I wonder at what point exactly did I evolve into this grown up?
When I was younger, I abhorred the monotonous tones of Jim Lehrer as he came on everyday after Arthur; I hated everyone who wouldn't play with me. I used to be so angry when my parents would be too busy to play with me, but I would get over it in less than five seconds when something else caught my attention.
I'm one of those adults now, I just realized. It breaks my heart. I've grown up. My cousin just asked me to play with him and I said "Maybe later."
I remember when I would hear those words and huff away with indignant childishness off to play by myself...
I'm an adult.
When did that happen? I suppose around those hazy midnight hours last year as I turned 18, I legally became an adult, but when did I let myself lose the kid in me? When did I stop caring about playing? When did I start caring about things that don't matter like money and time and what other people think of me?
I want it back. I want to be able to find hours of entertainment from something other than the internet, something like a lifeless, plain, little doll that doesn't do anything unless I imagine her to.
There it is. That's what I've been missing.
Imagination.
Growing up is the replacement of the magic of imagination with the harsh, coldness of reality. Grown ups need reality because it's reassurring, it exists, it's palpable. It's real. It's there.
But a kid? A child doesn't need anything. A child is fine, a child is not afraid. Children are free. They don't need reality to fall back on, they don't need reality for support. They are fine with not knowing what comes next, the future, the unknown. They are happy to live in the present. To exist in the moment, to stay simple and happy from day to day.
Sigh.
I want that kid back. I have to go play with my cousin now, it's the least I can do.
The nagging in my mind won't stop for a while, though, I'm sure.
When did I grow up?
When did I become one of them?
It happens to everyone.
It's like when you sit outside and watch the sunset, waiting for that single moment during which the sun dips below the horizon and the light is doused by the inky blueblack of the night sky.
And you watch and watch
and wait,
not daring to blink lest you miss that moment...
And all of a sudden, and you don't quite know how, the stars are blinking against a velvety indigo blanket of sky and the sun has gone away until tomorrow...and you've missed the moment.
And maybe, just maybe,
it's not a moment at all.
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