Track 3: Living In Pretend (My Girl Imagination)
I sat on the beach in the moonlight. Another screaming match with my father, another reason to blame me for my mother's fragile emotional state. It's your fault, I'd scream, she always wanted to be a dancer. She had dreams before you tied her down and knocked her up. Karen, I love you, I never regret becoming pregnant with you. I never believed her when she said that, I knew that if I had become pregnant then I would have regretted it. I would have regretted it terribly.
The sound of the waves crashing mirrored by restless soul. Angry, wild, unforgiving, the waves of emotion were violent. The rhythmic melody of the ocean sent vibrations throughout my body. Sometimes, I found myself humming to a tune I felt rather than heard. Like my mother, I too loved to dance and sing. What had she dreamt about when she was young? Was she like me? Did she long for freedom too but made the mistake of marrying a man who only trapped her and made her life miserable? She had once been so beautiful, but as I had grown older I noticed the toll that life in this town had taken on her, her once accentuated features dulled by the mundane life she agreed to.
I looked in the reflection of glass at the small ticket station on the pier. The moonlight lit my face, my face that was beautiful just as my mother's was. But one day, I would be just like her. Lost, trapped, unhappy and living a life of routine and regret. I forced a smile, noting the curve of my cheekbones and the dark hair that framed them.
Was I in love with him, or was I in love with the idea of him? I no longer felt free, I felt trapped. I had to escape from this cage I had put myself in.