“Why should I have to do it?! Why can't one of you guys?” I was watching my fifteen year old self getting peer pressured into breaking into the public swimming pool to let the others in from the other side. It was about 3am and all of our mothers thought that we were staying at each others houses, it was the first time that I'd ever been on the streets after 10 and I remember the feeling, like I was so grown up and wild, it's such a vivid feeling that I just never let go of, not even when I hit thirty, I still grasped at that memory, so that a part of me would be forever fifteen years old, wild and free.
“Because this was your idea!” Patrick, my first love, I was stood right next to him watching my life unfold again as an invisible observer. I felt like Scrooge in a Christmas Carol, I was waiting for the moment to come when I would have to promise to change my ways and then, after repenting, I would be sent home to live out my life as a philanthropist, loved by all.
“Just man up and do it already, Ellie.” My old friend Katherine gave my younger self a shove towards the wall that they wanted me to scale. If I'm correct, Katherine went on to become a lawyer and after she successfully became a lawyer she went on from that to become a drug addict. I think she's still alive but I'm not certain. I remember telling my mother about what had become of dear old Kat and I remember her responding with an eye roll followed by an 'I always had my doubts about that girl.' in the kind of voice that only a mother can use.
Young me gave in, proceeded to shrug off her backpack full of alcohol and climbed over the gate to let her friends in so that they could enjoy being rebellious for a night.
I watched me and my old friends splash about whilst laughing at their accomplishment of successfully fooling the grown ups in their lives, it was great to watch and I could have watched forever. All I wished for, as I sat letting my life go by, was to swap places with the happy teenager that was content to just have fun forever, the carefree girl that felt so far away from responsibilities and decisions. I didn't want to be young again for any vain reason, I just wanted to be in that moment, in my teenage years, when everything was beautifully simple and I was still allowed to be a child in my own grown up way. I wanted to be taken care of for a second, whether it was by my mother, my father, my friends or Patrick. I just wanted to cry like only a teenage girl can cry whilst being held and consoled, and secretly know that, through all of the tears and dismay, I was still young with my whole life ahead of me and nothing really mattered, not too much.
How different things were then, the ignorance of youth is a sort of magic I think, it's not to be taken for granted.
I'm rambling, that's a curse that afflicts the young and old; never knowing when shut up.
“What are you thinking about?” his voice startled me out of my day dream, I looked towards the front seat of the car and it's anonymous driver.
“I'm thinking that I'm jealous of her.” I indicated towards my teenage self with a nod of my head and continued to stare longingly.
“You're still that girl, you just lost a bit of her along the way. We're going to figure out where you lost that piece of youth and hope and you're going to get it back.” his voice was making me want to reach out to him and as disturbing as that was, as to my knowledge there was no face that went with that voice but there was something...warm there. Talking to him was comforting, it was like his words became part of my body as soon as they left his mouth, like they were racing around me with the gush of my blood. I longed to give a face to that feeling, to that voice, but I couldn't there was something blocking revelation that was relentlessly pounding at the floodgates, begging to be let loose.
“Why can't I see you?” I whispered to the ghost that was taking me hostage.
“You will, it's all part of the journey.”.
