It's Always Come Easy

You know, small town life isn't all it's cracked up to be. I mean, I can see the romance of moving from a big, impersonal city to a little community where everyone knows everyone else, but when you've lived in a small town your entire life, the novelty starts to wear off. My town isn't just any small town; it's the smallest of the small: Star's Hollow, Connecticut. You've never heard of it? I'm not surprised.

Honestly, I shouldn't complain. I've loved this town all of my life. I swear I know every single person here, and it's comforting in a way. I can walk down the street at any given moment and carry on an actual conversation with almost anyone I walk past. But at the same time, if you do talk to everyone you pass, you don't get anywhere, and if you don't, everyone thinks you're being rude.

I'm definitely not rude, but I'm not the most outgoing person you'd ever meet, and I often end up in the shadows. My mom probably is the most outgoing person you'd ever meet. She runs an inn nearby, and talking to absolutely everyone is pretty much in her job description. She's always nice to everyone too, even the people she doesn't like. Everyone likes my mom. Everyone loves my mom.

Then there's my half-sister, Rory. My mom had her at sixteen, so she's a lot older than me. She's really more like my aunt than my sister. She's great, and she's always been amazingly sweet to me, and to everyone, but she had this amazing academic record when she was in school, then she graduated Yale to become a journalist for the New York Times, and now she travels, and she's married and has a daughter that's barely three years younger than me. Basically she's managed to get everything from life that she ever wanted, and everything Mom ever wanted for her. My mom's never led me to believe that I had to compete with Rory, but it seems to go unsaid. Everything I do seems just one notch below what Rory would have done.

I'm not stupid, but I don't quite excel at anything. I get A's and B's in school, but I go to Star's Hollow High. Rory went to this amazing prep school and still managed to get straight A's. My mom says I'm more like she was in school, but I'm not, not quite. Maybe with grades, but she was definitely the more social type than I am. I have friends, and I talk to people that aren't really my friends, but I don't go out of my way. I'm pretty quiet, but not because I'm shy. I'm really not shy, I guess I'm just reserved. I don't usually have anything interesting to say, at least not at the time I should say it. I come up with just the right thing to say five minutes later sometimes, but by that time saying it would be stupid.

If I had to say who I took after, I guess it would be my dad more than anyone else. He's a great guy, although not the most outgoing. He really takes some getting to know before you like him, but once you know him, you'll never want to know anyone easier to get along with. I don't actually think there are many people in the world that really know him, but I like to think I'm one of them. He's taken me fishing and camping, and to do all of the things my mom doesn't like to do. I've been able to drive this little fishing boat he built himself for about two years now. He's not particularly book smart, but he knows so much about practical things, things that really matter. If all I achieve in my life is to learn as much about life as my dad already knows, I'll be almost completely satisfied.

Unfortunately the "almost" exists. I want something else, too. I want a guy. Not a boyfriend, but a guy that's for me, that I can be with for the rest of my life. I want a real true love. I want to find what my parents have. I'm not saying I need it now, but I need it at some point. At this rate, I don't know if it's going to happen.

Okay, granted, I'm sixteen. But at sixteen, I've never had a boyfriend. I've had maybe three or four crushes, but that's it. I wish more than anything right now that I didn't want a boyfriend, that I could say that the reason I'm single is that I don't have time for guys or that I want to concentrate on my schoolwork, but I try not to lie when I can help it. I want one, but opposite my mom, I'm sort of an old-fashioned girl. I won't ask a guy out. He has to be the one to ask, and no guy really thinks of me as a dateable girl. I'm sure that's partially my fault. I don't really talk to many guys, and I can't expect a random guy to come up to me in the hallway to announce that he's been pining over me for a year. That's the kind of thing that happens in movies and sometimes novels, but not in real life. But God, would that be great.

Honestly now it's harder than it's really ever been because there's really no guy I know that I'd even consider dating. Again, small town charm. I feel like I know everyone in this town, and no guy here is right for me. People like my mom are lucky. She and her soul mate have always been in the same place, and they've always known they should be together. It's always been easy for them.

I guess they can't have had a perfect relationship forever, there was a time before they knew one another, I know that much. It's just that I've never felt like I could talk to my mom about guy stuff because she's always had the amazingly ideal relationship with my dad, so she couldn't possibly know anything about not being able to find love. And if I ever do find it, what will she know about losing it, or not being able to make it work? Not to be a pessimist, but not many girls stay with their first love all of their lives.

I hate that I can't talk to her about these things, because she's so easy to talk to about practically anything else, but this, she can't know about. How can she? She found the ideal man, and she's known him forever. Even now, so many years after they've been married, their relationship is completely perfect. They fight on occasion, but they always make up within a matter of hours. Neither of my parents can possibly know anything about real, imperfect relationships. It's always come easy to them.