I turned to her and asked, “Have you heard? About me moving?” Juliet nodded her head solemnly. In a few months I would be moving, but we hadn’t discussed the subject yet. I remember in the spring of fifth grade, Juliet and I were walking to school on the bike path above our streets. I wanted to continue school with Juliet, my one friend who understood me. I cried and cried to my mom, begging her to please let us stay. Juliet was the hardest thing I had to leave behind. Our friendship was one that could not be broken, that is until I moved away. All the winters we went sledding by Spy Pond or the nights we spent with her aunt and uncle eating Trader Joe’s artichoke dip. I cherish every moment we played in her yard, barefoot and carefree.
SUNFLOWER SKETCH TV
We spent so many moments laughing till our bellies hurt, and obsessing over our favorite TV characters. I cherish the moments we spent together curled up on the couch watching the anime Avatar, and later on Doctor Who. Juliet loved to draw, so, many afternoons we would sit at the table together and sketch mermaids, fairies, and self-portraits of each other. I ended up not being able to get through it – Voldemort gave me nightmares. Juliet would read Harry Potter, so when I went home I would curl up in my bed and try to read it too. Juliet played piano, and not long after we met, I started to take lessons with her. For ballet, she would wrap it into a bun and at school, a lot of the time she wore it up. Her hair was very long and blonde, and when the sun hit the top of her head, she looked like a sunflower. She was a ballet dancer with long graceful legs, and she walked with her feet outwards in a constant plie. Juliet’s laugh was delectable it was filled with joy like how a baby cracks up for the first time. She and I would compete to see who could touch the fence by the bike path, which was at the top of her yard. There was a rope swing Juliet’s father had built, that hung off a large tree, we would swing on it after school. The yard was green and decadent, filled with flowers and fairy houses we had built together. I would walk to the end of my street and crawl my way through some bushes and across the tunnel to get to Juliet’s backyard. At the end of my street, there was a tunnel that led to a sports field and above the tunnel was a bike path. She lived right behind my block, which was a dead-end street with a ton of kids to play with. This is for you Juliet, thank you for being a true friend. However, now that I am three months away from turning twenty, I’ve been reminiscing on the only point in my life where I took my time, and genuinely enjoyed being a child. Between the current political climate, the pandemic, and the planet burning up, it’s very easy to fall into a pit of despair and feel like time is standing still. The idea of a job, or having a family seems nearly impossible. Unlike before, it has been hard to picture a future for myself. By the time I technically became an adult, the pandemic had hit and since then I have been stuck still waiting for some sense of freedom. I rushed into things I thought I wanted and made myself miserable because of it. The more my parents tried to keep me from partying, drinking, smoking, sex, the more I felt as though I needed it. It started as desiring smaller privileges of having a boyfriend and wearing makeup, then gradually grew into a deep craving for freedom and adulthood. Being an adult was the one thing I wished for throughout my adolescence. I couldn’t wait to kiss boys, drive a car, go shopping, and get dressed in the high-tech closets that were always featured in Disney shows. When I was in grade school, the one thing I wanted most was to be sixteen.