Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time there was a little girl. She ran around in her panties with a bowl of Cheetos and life was beautiful, all the time, it was purely beautiful. She didn't know the meaning of worry; she had no reason to. She didn't know the meaning of despair; she had never endured it. She didn't know the meaning of regret; she had none. Life was flawless; easy; nothing she couldn't handle.

Once upon a time this little girl and her cousins found a log in the middle of some trees by a stream behind Grandma's house. They built a fort where no one but them could stay. They took chips and pickles and Twinkies galore to their hideout they titled, Secret Meadows. The four of them shared secrets in the Secret Meadows, they played games, they laughed. The little girl climbed trees and one day she fell and scraped her knee. It bled, she cried. But her cousins always helped her up and they began feeding the ducks in the stream again. 

Once upon a time this little girl was coloring with her best friend Autumn. They were singing, laughing, playing. They were always singing. She wanted to sing for millions upon millions of people on a giant stage, hearing them chant her name. But then the little girls both wanted that pink crayon. They stopped singing, laughing, and playing and started to yell at each other. They bickered, cried, hit, scratched, pinched, until Autumn's mommy broke it up. Five minutes later they were back to singing, laughing, playing. Like it had never happened.

Then one day, this little girl kicked her mommy. She yelled at her daddy. She cried when she didn't get what she wanted. But somehow they still loved her. Even after you mess up, everything goes back to normal and it's like it never happened. You go back to routine and forget anything happened; she thought.

Once upon a time this little girl wasn't a little girl anymore. She grew up. She turned 14. She got her first kiss in her Prince Charming's backyard, surrounded by trees. It was so romantic; a storybook scenario, despite the slimy mud beneath her feet. She didn't care about the mud; she only cared that their lips touched for a millisecond. It was a millisecond, but it was a millisecond she wanted so bad. But then she learned that even in storybooks, the endings aren't always a beautiful sunset followed by a faded black screen and pretty cursive letters tracing the words "And they all lived happily ever after". Sometimes, the letters just traced "The End". Sometimes, the letters never even appeared. The sunset was often followed by mere silence. Suddenly, life was no longer all flawless all the time.

Once upon a time this girl had friends. Friends never leave you, they're always there for you and don't leave you when you need them most- she thought. Well those friends, they turned her back on her. She had never known loneliness, nor the sting of people's cruel words. But she always had that fair skinned, light haired, freckled best friend when she needed her. Addie Lou. Addie Lou was always a friend. Addie Lou got her through the hard times. She always did.

Once upon a time this girl moved away from her childhood town. She moved away from Addie Lou's house. Away from her Prince Charming's tree filled backyard. Away from Secret Meadows. Away from Grandma and Grandpa's house. It was a new experience; something she'd never gone through. But she loved it. The thrill of being the new girl; the thrill of having new roads and places to explore.

Then this girl messed up. She didn't just kick her mom or yell at her dad. She didn't just forget to hang up her clothes. She didn't just flunk a test. She really really messed up. She cried. She tried to forget. She didn't. She tried to sleep. She didn't. She tried to smile. She did, but only she knew how fake it was.

Suddenly she wanted to be that little girl in her panties, eating Cheetos, watching Barney, talking in that little raspy voice. She didn't care about growing up. She didn't want to. She didn't care whether she got a millisecond of a kiss or got to feed the ducks at Secret Meadows. She didn't even care whether she got to stand on a stage and sing for millions of screaming people. All she wanted was to be that little girl again.

Oh what she'd do to be that little girl again. To not know the feelings of worry; despair; regret. To not carry around weights of mistakes she makes every single day, some much much bigger than others. To not care to know what the meaning of life was, cause it didn't seem to matter.

Once upon a time that girl spent her Sunday night blogging. Praying. Blogging. Praying. Just trying to find closure. And maybe one day, just MAYBE, she'll be able to say that

once upon a time, she found that closure.

But for now, this particular story fades in silence.