Wild Cherry Trees and Yes, More Goldfish

The month after I turned eighteen, I thought my life was going to end.  I was confused about some silly teenage boys, I was stressed about AP and IB tests, and I had my braces tightened.  Because of probably all three, I had not been able to eat for about a weekend.  Which is a severely  l o n g  time.  Anyway, whilst on the fifteen-minute nutrition break my school offered, I remembered I had "fishie-crackers" in my locker.  I grabbed the bag, and directed myself to my English classroom where I promptly sat down.

So there I sat, plopping one goldfish at a time onto my tongue.  I'd wait a little bit, and then, using my tongue, I'd squish the fish until it was swallow-able. It was quite a method.  I sat there, unstable and hungry, for about ten minutes, until a friend came in.  With a "Cebre! I haven't hugged you for a while..." he reached down and bent over to rectify that problem.  But as he did, instead of finding comfort and camaraderie, I found horror.

In slow motion, I saw my fishies, bag and all, falling to the floor.  Of course, the open end of the bag faced the ground, and so the floor was quickly adorned with little orange crackers.  I broke.  All of my usual composure and calmness (...) left. I broke into sobs as the bell rang and my fellow Seniors flooded in.

The funny thing was, although some of the boys in my class were freaked out and offered to ditch class to go buy me more goldfish at the 7-Eleven down the street, the majority of my class looked at me, and then took their seats. Apparently it was not surprising to see me weeping over a pile of crackers.

Growing up, on visits to our home, my grandma would say, "Terra trauma, Cebre melodrama."  She apologized a few years back for labeling us as such, but in all honesty, she was right.  I can't fully speak for Terra anymore, but I'm pretty sure I was and am still melodramatic.

My friend, Chelsea, and I imagined up so many different things when we were younger.  Probably inspired by Britney Spears' "Lucky", we were teen pop stars who, despite our fame, were still unhappy.  We'd swing on the swings in the top level of my garage, and sing songs about the unsatisfying life of grass.  Sitting on a stump in her horse pasture, we were princesses living on some distant island.  On our playground at school we'd run around, tapping and knocking into all sorts of poles.  Of course, there were secret buttons on the playground that would open up a new technological world.  In our minds, the computers could do anything--change our handwriting into type font, call people with video... honestly, Apple and other companies stole our ideas.  We were so innovative, really.  Like how, as mentioned above, in my garage we'd swing on the swings singing about our secret lives as stars.  We were Hannah Montana before she was even an idea.

Perhaps that's why I've always loved Anne of Green Gables, both the books and the movies.  As a dramatic little girl, I could totally relate to her feeling in the "depths of despair." (Secretly, sometimes I still do.) Like Anne, I had a craving for reading and an active imagination.  Days on end I'd rock in our hammock, looking at my shadow-speckled body and then back up into the trees that would cast the shadows, wondering if there were fairies hiding among the fruit-tree leaves.

Or perhaps I just love Gilbert Blythe.  He's so ideal (with the exception of his name).