New Year's Resolution

Sylvia Holland |

12/22/2007 - 12/23/07

Third Place (tie), teen essays

No longer a child and not yet an adult, Sylvia Holland offers us a brave and intimate look at her inner world. As she faces the challenges her growing maturity — she can't stay in Neverland forever, she realizes — she seizes on the possibilities and promises of a new year to propel herself forward.

On a windy day, the clouds smother quiet souls and hidden features. The almost bare trees swing in sullen gloom. The winter chill collides with everyone's sleepy face and slouched body.

Walk to school, drive to school, be driven to school, and then try to live another day. Hang with your boy, girl, or friend in the morning. Hug softly or hide silently at break and lunch. Sleep in 5th. "Two more periods" we all say, think, or hope. A long, loud, crackly ring releases us.

Now, we walk, drive, or wait for a ride. While waiting, we use the time to cuddle, laugh, curse, listen to forbidden iPods, run, or throw the football. Or you might stay the same quiet self, on your way home to lock yourself in your room and write.

Imagery circles in my 14-year-old mind, spicing up my day. I think about people and the minor or major flaws they carry in their own minds, or the way they carry and dress themselves. I chuckle at the pictures I place in the dusty corner in my head, and I sometimes become depressed in my thoughts about how messed up the world is. I wish I could be there for everyone who is caught in a sullen web, though I'm always scared I will become caught myself in the pressure for so much happiness. I notice how hard people have to work for a smile or even how hard other people around that person have to work to get him or her to smile. Those friends of mine do a lot to make my lips exercise laughter and produce a smile and I do the same for them on their down days.

Emotions come naturally once created. My emotions are as balanced as those of a teenager can get. Yet, my emotions are not actually very balanced at all. It's difficult to determine emotions, as it is difficult to predict the weather. I have found that out in my trials to be "happy today," though sometimes I happen to fail fulfilling my goal. When in despair my hands automatically grab a pencil, soccer ball, running shoes, or my iPod. Many other kids don't have those options.

Thoughts trail to memories. I dream my own world in a cluttered mind. My favorite fantasy repeats whenever I'm in desperate need of escape. I return to a scene from my childhood. I am playing catch with smiles, roaming neat gardens and good hide-'n'-seek trees. See the full moon giving off a magical haze. Watch the shadows reach for my bare feet as I run away from the voice calling "28 ... 29 ... 30 ... ready or not, here I come." Hear when my heart beat pounds loudly at my chest, and my hands cover my small mouth to catch the excited giggles. As this time ticks to the past, I see now a woman, one I can't really see but I know is there. I am no longer a child in my daydreams. I'm a woman in that garden.

Watch her walk in that same garden, solemnly staring at the sagged branches brushing the soft grass. See the old hide-'n'-seek tree. A slight dew drop or two falls into my outstretched hand. Sometime here, in the past, I felt excited in the Curious George type of way. I laugh the time off, not knowing how to preserve the memory a little more. I smile at the thought of hiding.

Now, hiding is such a dangerous thing for a teen to do. People will become suspicious of you or just forget you exist. This memory takes me away from that. Serene happiness always pulses in my heart and makes my blue eyes water — though it's something deeper, something not so black-and-white. Maybe the emotion I felt, and still feel, is a desperate longing to run, fall, hide, and be able to chuckle at the thought.

Life as a teenager says running away from something is cowardly or immature. I don't want to fall. I'd become a failure, humiliated, or I'd be forgotten. If I hide, life decides to look the other way. I become alone, and lost in the spot, in time, or where I fell. That memory watches me fall. The soft hands of my mother pick me up, with a caring smile and a concerned, "Are you OK?" I can't stay in Neverland forever. Life, you and I need to remember, or learn, is not your mother or that caring person who helps you up from that fall or brings you out from that hiding place. It's your ongoing rival that you always need to defeat, though it may defeat you.

This new year, as my 15th year begins, I will resolve to try not to fight life, rather let life flow through its cycles. I just need to remember to be myself. Life is unbeatable because it decides whether you win, go or pass. There are ways to find peace with life, though it takes great concentration and investment. If I can achieve this resolution, then I won't have to hide.