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Music provides escape

Friday, Nov. 4, 6:38 p.m., Ponchatoula, Louisiana — I’ve been thinking a lot about wishes lately. The wishes I have now and the wishes I should be having as a teenage girl in her last year of high school. The wishes my mother has, the ones she should be having.

I wish for no more abrupt changing. No more people changing on a whim. Changing, changing, changing. My Ex changed from the person I knew, as did some friends now — and both times (it’s really amazing how this works), I find myself hurt.

The headphones go on, and my fingers start typing whatever words spill out of my head.

My mom hates the camper. She fixes herself on remembering the house. I miss the house too, but the lessons I have learned in my life have taught me that missing things will only hurt me. No Ex-Boyfriend. No friends. No home.

I put on the headphones and try stumbling around on my own two feet, but Mom brings to the camper books from the library on building homes. It’s an open window to hurt.

Hurt’s a constant thing in my twisted gypsy life. Normal girls now are wishing for dates to dances and to go out with friends to the mall and movies. Normal parents are wishing to get through the workday to come home to see the family.

What are our wishes?

Mine has almost always been the same: to be happy. It hasn’t changed since I started high school. To just be happy.

Funny, how that’s sort of difficult to achieve when you are permanently “displaced,” and your friends are scattered across the country.

Sometime since this ride started, I grew up on accident — something I said I never would do. Peter Pan stopped being real to me and transformed himself into the “spirit of childhood.” Neverland lost a place for me, and my wishes became warped.

And it all happened one fall day when a gurgle-swoosh came from the big, blue, wet thing, and it came with a cackle-cackle and a whoosh-whoosh. It blew and it blew until it flooded my house down.

Whoosh.

I’d find a star to wish on, but stars lead to Neverland, and Neverland doesn’t exist.

It’s frightening how much I’m depending on music right now. I think it’s frightening how much each person in this mess is depending on a single thing: be it a lover, a friend, or something else. I depended on people too much, and I pushed them too far.

At least I learn from the mistakes I make. See, you can’t push music too far. The songs I listen to that take away this stress and hurt, the songs that make me forget my Impossible Wishes for a little while. These songs are staying right here, and that’s a good thing. Dramatic or not, I know I need them.

Self-perseverance. I wonder if the people who knew the old me would be proud of how I’m handling this standing-on-my-own-two-feet business. Would they look at me and care? Or did they both change too much? Hi, ho, uncertainty. Whoosh.

Samantha Perez is a Reporter for Youth Journalism International.

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