At eleven she learns that she can be anything and that she gets to choose. She already knew that of course, but now, now she is almost a teenager and so she must have some idea of how big anything really is. She dances and spins and marvels at the magic of the world and she thinks that the only thing that could make this better is the actual existence of magic. In her mind nothing is wrong with the world and there can't be anything bad, ever.
She hasn't really encountered love but if someone were to ask her, she'd have to say love was the feeling she got when her parents praise her or when her sister pays attention to her.
At twelve she thinks that "You can be anything!" is an overstatement. She can't, in all honesty, be anything. She could be most things, but not all. She has stopped dancing and spinning as much and the world has lost some of its shine and glimmer and she doesn't really marvel at it anymore. She has learned that the world has a dark side and it isn't always sunshine and rainbows and nice things all the time; there are bad things too, like her parents getting into a car crash from which they could have died. She also realizes that being a teenager is not the best thing in the world and there are problems that she can't solve, like her grandmother having breast cancer and her sister hating her best friend.
She still hasn't really encountered love yet but she thinks that it is the thing she sees spark in her sister's eyes when she looks at the guys she always bring home. Or the soft smile on her mother's face when she looks at her husband, asleep on the couch, the news still playing.
At thirteen she sees that being anything is so not fair because she can't be anything. At all. There is nothing she can be except a disappointment and a failure and a freak and that was never going to change. A disappointment to her sister because she couldn't let go of this opportunity and she couldn't, wouldn't, leave her best friend. A failure to her parents because she can't get along with sissy and she just can't forgive her for the things she said. A freak because no matter what she can't help that she likes who she likes and it's not her fault and she didn't want this and she's not a freak, okay? She's not. And it hurts. Hurts that her friends (well except him) don't look at her the same anymore and she doesn't quite fit in. It hurts that her sister won't even look at her anymore, let alone talk to her (but when she does she'd say things like, "freak").
She still hasn't really encountered love but she thinks that it is the feeling she gets when they are walking down the hallway school. Or when her mother is in the kitchen baking cookies and teaching her the recipe with flour coating her mother's hands and apron and some on her own face.
At fourteen she thinks that love is the thing that keeps her friendship with her best friend. He has been talking and hanging out with them and she doesn't quite know what to do. They hate her and they tease her and they call her names and they make her drop her things and he doesn't seem to notice those things. But she thinks that he must just be oblivious and she ignores them and just smiles and acts like they don't affect her, but they do. And she sometimes doesn't cry herself to sleep and those are the good days and the bad days make her think that love doesn't exist but the good days, those are the days that she believes that love exists and she just has to find it. She hasn't heard from her sister in a year and a half and she is starting to lose faith that her sister will actually respond to the letters that she has been sending once a month. That she actually cares. And he doesn't seem to care that she has problems, all he cares about is asking her out in the most inappropriate of ways. At the wrong times too. And it's hard because she could like him too, but he makes her hate him. And her best friend doesn't seem to notice that she's having a bad day if he's there because then all her best friend's attention is on him and how disgraceful he is.
She still hasn't quite encountered true love yet, but she's willing to bet that she knows what love is even if it isn't true love. It's the thing that made her best friend notice that she was on the edge of no return and slowly, cautiously, coax her back. It's the thing that makes him realize that he's wrong and that it's wrong to do what he does. It's the thing that keeps her holding on to her sister even after a year and a half of silence.
At fifteen she realizes that there really is a thin, thin line between love and hate because she thought that she loved her best- ex-best friend and she knows that she hates him. Him and all of his friends who tease and hurt and hate and even her best friend (ex-best friend she reminds herself) couldn't, wouldn't resist their allure. How, how could he have done that? Called her that vile name, that slur, to her face, when she was only standing up for him? He was a disgrace to her but, she, she was even more of a disgrace. To herself, to her family, to everyone who she knew. But on the opposite side of the spectrum was him. He grew on her and was actually nice, when he wasn't randomly asking her out that is. And he never pressed upon the issue, he just sat with her and let her cry or talk or just think. And the best part was that he never made her feel inferior or looked at her differently for the things she couldn't help. The things her sister called her a freak for, the things that made her friends look at her differently.
She thinks she might have found one love as she lost another. She found the love that she had in her best friend only as she lost him. And she found the love of another, him, a new, unfamiliar kind of love of which she's not quite sure what to think.
At sixteen she finds herself falling in love for the first time in her life. She had hoped and expectantly waited for this moment, but she never imagined that she wouldn't have anyone to talk to about it. She always thought she would talk to her sister about it, but it had been three years since the last time she really talked to her. The last thing she had received from her sister was a wedding invitation with a note affixed that read, 'If you can refrain from being a freak for long enough, you can be a bridesmaid.' And so, she didn't have anyone to talk to. She supposed that she could talk to one of the girls, but it just wouldn't be the same. It was times like these that made her wish for her best friend back but he would have scoffed at her anyway for the person she had fallen in love with. But he made all of it better. The room seemed to brighten when he walked in and dim when he left. He was kind to her but she was disheartened because he had stopped even suggesting that they go out. He stopped asking her out at all and seemed to have gotten over her, just as she was falling for him.
She knew now that she has encountered love in everything that she had wondered about before. There was love in the kindness he gave her, love in the gentleness of her mother's smile when she looked at her husband asleep after a long day. Love in the way she knew that she could count on her best friend when they were still talking. Love in the way that her sister looked at her fiance. Love in the way that she held on to the hope that her sister still loved and cared for her. Love in the way that she never let go of grip on the cliff she was hanging off, because she knew that it would hurt the ones she loves. It was in everything, even her pain.
At seventeen the real world seems so, so,so,sososososo close and too close. It's not something that is far away, it's right there and it's scary. There are things out there that would give her parents nightmares, if they were still alive. She had gone to the funeral and had left halfway through because she couldn't handle it. The pain of losing her parents added to the pain that was brought about by her sister treating her like a disgrace, like she wasn't even worthy to look upon her sister's shoes. But even when she was feeling terrible, terrible loss, when she ran out at the end of her eulogy, when she screamed at the unfairness of the world and at her parents for leaving, when she was sobbing the sobs of someone who was broken almost beyond repair, he was there. He held her and didn't make her talk. She never loved him more than then. And she felt the love she had felt from him since she was fifteen radiating from him and calming her nerves. She knew that the world outside of the perfect (well, almost) little bubble she lived in since she was eleven was a terrible place and there were unimaginable and unmentionable horrors out there, she felt she could face it with him at her side.
She knew that the love that she had was something to be envied and that he loved her more than she could know. Her boyfriend. She never thought she would get to call someone that, thought that she was too unlovable, too broken, too much of a freak. But she knew love now and it was amazing and it was scary at the same time because she didn't know how to love. But she was willing to try.
At eighteen she know that the world is a scary place but there are bright spots too. Like watching him and his friends joke and play while they tinker with the motorbike that they love so much. Or long walks in the park near their building holding hands and talking about everything and nothing. Those that brighten her day and remind her of what she's fighting for. Of what they all are fighting for. A better life, for her and the ones like her. For the children of the next generation. She worries for her sister (and her sister's husband, though not much because he's a pig and she doesn't like him) daily and hopes, wishes that her sister would just respond to let her know that she's still safe and alive. She worries for her friends too, the ones that he introduced her to. The ones that grew on her and soon became just as much a part of her heart as he was. She also worries for her ex-best friend though admittedly not as much. He tried to contact her multiple times, each time getting no reply for she couldn't involve herself in that anymore. He made his choice and she made hers.
She knows now that it's okay to love the ones who gave up on her because she didn't do that and she's allowed to still worry. She thinks that she has progressed a long way from where she was at eleven, some of it good some of it bad, and she's still trying to figure how that could be. She loves with a wild abandon for she has just learned to love and there is no way that she is going to let go now. She realizes that love makes you do insane things, but also gives you the strength to do those thing too.
At nineteen she loses the first piece of her heart that didn't belong to her family. And it hurts a lot more than she ever thought it could. It hurts that she didn't get enough time with them goddamn it! It wasn't fair. She didn't get to know them as well as she should have. As well as she wanted. She thought she'd have more time. She never imagined that loving someone could hurt this much or that she'd lose her loved ones. Never imagined that the grief of losing a friend, a brother, could hurt this much. But even as she grieved she rejoiced, because they didn't have to live in fear anymore because they weren't witnessing the horrors in this world anymore. And they got to witness her wedding before they died. And oh, the wedding. It was the best and worst day of her life. The best because she was getting married. The worst because she'd always thought that her father would be there to give her away, that her sister would be a bridesmaid, that her mother would be crying in the audience. But they weren't there. And it was hard to endure it alone but it was amazing. She was married, didn't have to carry her burdens alone anymore. Not everyone was as excited though, because they thought that she was too young and it wasn't safe and what if something happened? But she didn't care because it was her wedding and she was marrying the love of her life.
She was in the kind of love that she had only dreamed about. She had wished for this moment, when she would be almost irrevocably bonded to the love of her life. The love was something she knew intimately, something that was no stranger. The thing that kept her holding on, even when there was no correspondence to tell her that they were safe and alive. The thing that kept her memories of her parents and loved ones that weren't with her anymore fresh in her mind. The thing that made her heart feel like it was going to burst out of her chest in happiness, or tear her into a million pieces in pain.
At twenty the startling realization that she was still a kid and that she still had so much to learn was thrust upon her. She had just gotten out of school and how, how, could she bring a child into this world? How could she make a baby, her baby, live in this world? But with every worry came hope and love because she was pregnant! She was going to have a child. She thought that he was going to faint at the thought when she told him. But he hadn't and he had held her when the realization that she was going to have a baby dawned on her. A real, living, breathing child that they were going to have to raise and care for. She had sent her sister a letter, telling her that she was going to get a niece, but she hadn't gotten a reply back so she wasn't sure if it had made it through. Her ex-best friend knew too but only by accident. The child was going to live with loving parents, she vowed, and they were never going to wonder what love was because that would never be a mystery. And then he is born and it is the best day of her life. The love she has for him, her son, is almost enough to make up for the fact that she has lost five more friends. The sobs that she cries when she hears the news are heart-breaking sobs that tear her apart, ripping her heart to shreds again and again. They dash her against the jagged rocks of pain relentlessly. But then she remembers her son and for those long sunlit moments everything is alright because she loves him and their little family so, so much.
Love happened to be the only thing that kept her going. The thing that let her get up at ungodly hours to feed her son. That let her get through the sleepless nights, that got her through the pain of her sobs. That got her smiling through the tears when she couldn't understand why they were still fighting and she saw her son. It held her on her worst days and carried her on her best. It made the life she was living slightly more bearable, slightly less unimaginable.
At twenty-one she has to go into hiding because the evil was after her and her little family and they weren't safe anymore. Their little house was home to a ghost family now, they were now living in a prison on the edge of the world, away from civilization so that they could try and escape the evil, thwart its icy claws. It was a futile hope and that's all it was, a hope, but it was something and she had to believe that or there was nothing more to hold on to. She had to believe that it was worth it and that they had a chance. That was one of the only things keeping her here, other than her son. They had the futile hope and the love for their son and that was enough, it had to be enough. She had to believe in the hope and in her love for her little family because if she didn't then she might as well give up now. And if she gave up now what was going to happen to her son? She had brought him into this cruel world, and while she'd never trade her son for anything, it was her duty, her obligation, to protect him. Her days were spent cooped up in their little prison, painting walls, and talking to her son. Every day she worried for those that she didn't hear about, which was everyone but her little family because correspondence was dangerous and so she never knew and always wondered. It was so very hard not knowing because she always worried when she didn't know and how was she supposed to live here like this in the dark about everything and how? But he made everything better, he always did. He made it his mission to bring her out of her darkness when they made her like this because the darkness made everything worse and didn't help at all. It made her love him even more when he did that, calmed her down. What prevailed was her love for her little family, even when nothing else did.
Love, she thought, was less of a feeling and more of a choice. It was her choice to hold on to her sister, her choice to keep worrying about her best friend, even when they weren't talking anymore. Her choice to stay, even when it was so hard. A choice to hold on, to keep trying, to keep swimming against the current even when it was the last thing she wanted to do. Her choice to go into hiding to try and keep death's cold, clawed grip off her son, so he knew love. So, yes, it was her choice to keep loving, to keep trying even when it seemed impossible. Love prevailed, even in the face of death.
She never made it to twenty-two.