This didn't really turn out as I planned...

"I was eight, and grown." -I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

That was really the moment that made me realize it.

Because before, I hadn't quite given any thought to her age. Or maybe I had, but when Maya Angelou put it in words like that- in such a simple and direct sentence- that was what really made me step back and acknowledge that yes, she was eight. An eight year old was actually having to go through this. She was grown. Already. She had to be grown. She was forced into being grown. But, she was only eight.

Maybe it was never mentioned, or maybe I never noticed it, or maybe I simply blocked her age out of my mind because I didn't want to think about it. Because it was just too painful a thing, given the circumstances. Maybe I'd assumed that she was older because everyone else's characters were. Lily from The Secret Life Of Bees was 14 when she starts her coming of age journey, Melinda from Speak is 15, and Holden from The Catcher in the Rye is 16. It's just not fair that she has to be eight. But she is, and I overlooked it. And now here it was, staring me in the face.

When I was eight, I was happy. I was running in the backyard and imagining all it could be if I squinted hard enough. Eight years old was dancing in my kitchen or daydreaming on the couch because there was really nothing else for me to worry about doing. Eight years old was simple and easy and safe. I never imagined the kind of troubles that Maya had to go through, much less faced them myself. I couldn't even fathom a world in which someone my age was scared about money or new clothes. A world in which I would be worried about my parents not loving me or my grandma hitting me or anyone sending me off to live with someone else. I could not imagine a world of constant fear, of hiding- even at home. Of lying to my brother or keeping secrets that I wanted so desperately to tell. A world that had no safety, even for little eight year olds. Maya's world.

It hurts me so much that Maya never got those moments of little-girl giddiness or freedom. Maya never got to run in the backyard screaming with glee and have no chiding for it. She never got to sing too loudly or hit too hard or jump too high or make any mistake- she never got to be a kid, because when she was eight, she was already grown. And that breaks my heart.

Now, I'm fourteen.

I can make my own plans and do my my own homework and tie my own shoes. I can ride the subway by myself, and next year, I'll be doing it every single day 2 times a day. But, I'm not grown. I'm definately closer than before, and though it seems like I know everything there is to know and have grown up as much as is possible, I don't think I have. I'm not grown, and I won't be for a while.

I have fights with my mom over feelings and arguments with my dad over opinions. Because, finally, I have my own opinions. I've gone through all the typical events that mark me going from a girl to a woman. I'm growing up- who knows how fast or slow or when it will be over but, I'm not grown, I don't think.

And if I am, I don't know it. I don't know it because I never had a moment that said in no uncertain terms that I was done growing. I never had one single event that determined the end of my childhood. Maybe I will have that moment, maybe it's still to come in my future. And, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll ease into adulthood, grow slowly. Maybe I already have, too slow to notice.

But as I watched Maya standing in court in front of her family and in front of the man that took away her childhood in her very own home, I knew that she was right- she was grown. She was terrified and confused and far from ready to be an adult. But, she had to- ready or not- she was grown. And if there was anything more painful than that, it was watching her realize it.

Why Teenagers Don't Want To Wake Up In The Morning

I would be fine alone.
And I was.
Until the morning. When, only half awake, I tried to think why I was alone in the bed. There was a leaden feeling. It was the same leaden feeling with which I woke on mornings after John and I had fought. Had we had a fight? What about, how had it started, how could we fix it if I could not remember how it started?
Then I remembered.
For several weeks that would be the way I woke to the day.
-The Year Of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

I love sleeping more than practically anything else in the world. Maybe it's because I'm going through a staying-up-late-sleep-deprived phase that puts me in a constant state of tiredness, making sleep a precious commodity that I crave more of, always. Forget parties or concerts or running around the city at all hours of the night, acting twice my age- I’d much rather go home and take a nap, any day. This makes me sound incredibly lazy, but that’s really not what it’s about. Sleep lets me run away in my thoughts or from my thoughts. When I'm up at 4AM for the 5th time that week, completing a project that should have been done months ago, or waiting to see a TV show late at night, what keeps me going is the wonderful thought of how I will, eventually, be able to lay down my head, slip under the blankets, curl up into a ball, and fall fast asleep. The covers are always soft and safe and every line in my brain or heart is blurred and smudged. I’m in my own little unconscious world, unaware of anything happening around me or inside of me. It's this peaceful, carefree sensation that beats every feeling in the universe.
I can't be touched.

Until I wake up.
And the covers get pulled back.
And my mind slowly sharpens.
And everything comes crashing down.

Like Joan Didion-- when her husband dies and every morning she wakes up and that hard truth dawns on her once again. Every morning the covers are pulled back and her mind sharpens and she digs through her brain to remember everything that breaks routine, everything unnatural, everything that her unconscious, carefree self would never fathom- like John dying.

And the feeling that comes every time that that happens is unbearable-- the forgetting and remembering of the things that hurt the most. Because it's said that everything heals with time, all pain lessens as the hours and days and weeks pass. But how will anything heal if every morning is a fresh realization? How will the pain ever fade if you are hit each day with the initial shock of the very first time that it happened?

That's what I found most heartbreaking about this book- the way Joan would momentarily forget whether it was from falling asleep or just time starting to wear away the truth. Then she would wake up or see something that jolted her memory and it would all come rushing back in a second and she would have to face it all over again. It was as if each time this happened to her, every ounce of progress she had made was erased or forgotten and it was "back to the drawing board". Throughout the book, I was terrified for a character that I'd come to love so dearly because it seemed like she would never be OK, she would never feel OK when it was always "one step forward and two steps back".

Recent events of my life and just the fact that I'm fourteen has left a distance between my mother and I. It's hit like a meteor, practically over night, splitting the earth in half, leaving me on one side, and her on the other. What I laughed at and couldn't seem to understand as a little girl, what I swore would never happen, has happened. My mom and I have lost our relationship. I can’t handle her and she can’t handle me and neither of us know how to say that. Maybe it’s a phase, or maybe it’s forever. But, whatever it is, it’s here. The other day, when I could hear her steady breath and low snores from the next room over- when I was sure that she was sound asleep, I crept into her room to say goodnight. I used to do that every night. I used to kiss her cheek and she would pull me down for a hug and say something along the lines of "goodnight" and "I love you, beautiful girl" and "I'll see you in the morning". But I haven't kissed her cheek in weeks and I can't even remember the last time we've hugged.

I tiptoed to her side of the bed and leaned down and whispered goodnight and when she stirred, I expected tears or emotional ranting or a confused stare- all that seems to define our strange relationship lately- something I'd bite my lip at and awkwardly stalk off, not knowing quite what to say or do. But she looked up at me with the ocean blue eyes that stood out when she wore grey, the eyes that I’ve always envied, and they were tight and squinted like someone who had been staring at the sun for too long- slightly confused, but at the same time like she’d been expecting me. A slight smile played across her face- only one corner of her mouth turned up, sending ripples across that cheek. Then she closed her eyes again but kept the smile, and for a moment I thought she’d fallen back asleep.

Then I heard a whisper come of “goodnight” and “I love you” and “my beautiful girl”, in the same, ordinary way that it always used to. And for that moment, it felt like we were one of those pairs of mother and daughter who had a relationship again. Like what were before, like things had never changed. Like the days from years ago of sleeping curled beside her and cuddling and my imaginary rule of being safe from anything as long as she was there had never ended. Like we'd fixed it all or maybe just rewound.

Then I snapped out of my thoughts and looked down at her and remembered that she was half asleep- that she was having a barely-conscious moment. The kind where you wake up and for a minute, you forget what has happened- what life-changing thing has happened, or you forget that you’re supposed to be upset about something or angry at someone. And so, for a moment, you act like it’s not there, because for that second, it isn’t, not for you. And suddenly, I knew that she’d wake up the next morning and never remember this at all. And that things would go back to how they were- emotional and teary and frustrating- free of half smiles and squinting eyes. It would be like it had never happened.

I realized that just like Joan Didion, she would wake up the next morning and forget everything that has come between us over the past few months. She'd forget because the non-existant bond that we now have is completely irrational- it's something that no one could fabricate or imagine in a perfect state of sleeping. So, she'd forget, even if only for a split second and maybe start to call me in for an opinion or just to ask the time, before she remembered the unspoken rule telling her that she couldn't do that. It would come crashing down- the truth- and standing over my mom, looking at her ignorant-seeming blissful face was like staring into the sweet eyes of a small child that I knew would be hurt and I couldn't do anything about it, I couldn't even warn them-- I could only stand and watch it happen. And that was almost more painful than being the "Joan Didion", being the one to have the realization all over again time and time again, the one who has to pull back the covers and sharpen their mind, the one whose pain seems like it will drag on forever. Because watching pain can be harder than feeling it and on the outside looking in is an impossible position.

Oskar Schell Would Be Eighteen Now

Osama Bin Laden is dead.

And I'm not really sure what to think about that.

Last night as I slipped into bed, I heard my mom exclaim the news and run downstairs to watch coverage with my dad. But I was tired and there was school the next day and I don't think that it fully sunk in exactly what his being gone for good really meant. I just wanted to go to bed.

Then today, it was all the buzz in social studies class as people relayed their different versions of what they heard had happened so much to the point that I barely even believed it was true anymore. And when I got home from school and sat down to the computer and saw the headlines on Firefox's homepage and on the cover of The NY Times and rolling across the bottom of our television screen, I realized how fast everything was happening- so much so that I barely had a moment to think about all of it. I knew that I should be thrilled and excited and in the mindset that justice has been served to someone who deserved it more than anyone else in the world. But, as last nights coverage of the thousands of people who went down to ground zero at the earliest hours of the morning to chant "USA" and the national anthem and celebrate the extermination of Bin Laden like it was new years eve, I couldn't help but think how barbaric it was. I know that I should have found the video to be heart-warming and inspirational as I looked into the joyful faces of people who had been so personally scarred by his attack on The World Trade Center. But when I saw their streamers and horns and raised fists and American flags, it seemed like the saddest thing in the world for our country to be celebrating the death of this person as much as we are. Even after what he did, even after who he hurt, how many he hurt, and the cruel ways in which he hurt them.

He was still a person.

Right?

And then I couldn't help but think about how if I- as someone was barely at all personally affected by 9/11 and is likewise not personally harmed or could benefit from Bin Laden's death- was so shaken up and confused by all of this, then how would someone like, say, Oskar Schell react?

Oskar would be 18 now.

Oskar Schell- an adult.

What an impossible thought that is.

Would he be the same? Confused and searching for answers like he was 10 years ago? Would he think the same as me-- that it was wrong to have killed someone no matter who they were?

Or, the more likely of the two, the obvious answer, the response that is only in his natural human nature to have, the thing that makes me almost agree with Bin Laden's killing-

Would he be at Ground Zero- chanting and shouting and grinning at the fact that his dads killer had finally gotten what he deserved?

8 year old Oskar Schell.

So confused.

So scared.

Searching for something to make sense.

To fit in.

To justify it all

Would he be one of those people? Those people whose faces I thought to be barbaric? Is that who they all were-- just "Oskar Schell"s? Angry parents and sons and daughters and husbands and wifes and sisters and brothers and friends who were so hurt and broken- who were changed for good because of what Bin Laden did, whose once happy, carefree 8 year old smiles had been turned into the stone cold face of an angry adult who rejoiced in the killing of another human being?

I can't bear the thought of Oskar Schell being the face that represents all of those people, but I know that- were he real- it would most likely be the side he took. Because it's easy for someone like me who is shielded and unharmed from these horrors to say that killing is bad. But, in reality, how does someone who's childhood was stolen from them ever forgive the person who took it and their father away?

The ending of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, being one of the saddest endings of any book I've ever read, tied up no loose ends. It just further expressed Oskar's vulnerability and anger and confusion about every heartbreaking thing that happened to him in a powerful and affecting way. It showed that he never healed.

We would have been safe

It showed that maybe he, like so many other victims of this tragedy, never would heal.

It confirmed and supported that Oskar would not forgive and forget- he, instead, would be rejoicing over the death of the man who took that precious safe feeling and reality away from him

As I look into the faces of the people who celebrated at Ground Zero last night, I have to try to imagine seeing Oskar Schell and think to myself "would I maybe support them if he was there?". Because, essentially, they are all people just like Oskar Schell, for all I know. Their story is reminiscent of his own. They are people who have reason to be there, even if I don't agree with it. I have to try to see it all from their point of view.

But even then, does standing and celebrating in the spot where it all began really end it? Will killing Bin Laden give anyone closure? Will rejoicing over it ease anyone's pain? And, I don't know the answer to any of that because I've never experienced it before, but in my humble opinion, it really won't. Still, I think it's impossible for someone to go through that and come out in that positive mindset. I can go and preach about this all I want, but the truth is that if I was in their situation, I'd probably do the same, think the same, act the same. Wouldn't I?