The Future is in His Eyes

I am an only child, but I never have been a lonely child. I had the good fortune of growing up with a cousin who was a year younger than I was. I was his boss and he was my demon. We were as thick as thieves, as the saying goes. Of course, I was the mastermind, and he was the lackey. Whenever we did something wrong, I ran as quickly as I could to hide. My cousin always stood there and took the brunt of the blame. We fought each other like hell, but in retrospect, I know that it was only because we loved each other so much.

I feel terribly sorry for my younger cousin. I've been babysitting him for the past two days, but he's eight. And something about being twice his age makes me lose my patience with his antics. I can't understand his inner intrigues. It's hard for me to understand him most of the time because he speaks so sweetly and softly.

I can hear him, even now, as I write this blog post, gallivanting in the small space of the hallway, trying to devise a game for himself. Every couple of minutes he comes in and dances and asks me to put something on the internet, but I cannot. I haven't the time. I'm rewriting an essay that I bombed with a capital B, so I've been very short and impatient with him.

I'm letting him down, just like every psuedo-adult in his life. He's got no one to share his little inner turmoils and triumphs. I can't be that person for him. I don't understand what he wants the way I used to when I took care of him and I was ten and he was two, or when I was twelve and he was four. Something about those ages before fourteen made being those ages mutually intelligible. I was always the nice one to him back then. Now I seem like the bitch in comparison to my other cousin who used to play too roughly.

I play too roughly with his self-esteem. I'm sorry.

Let Me Grow On You

And you, you're pretty as a picture, and I don't even know your name,

But I sure would like to meet you... why don't you see the show again?

- Barry Manilow, See the Show Again

I always feel really cool when I've touched someone's life. That makes me pretty happy, when I can turn your world around a little bit. A certain friend of mine has recently mentioned that while I am probably one of the most annoyingly happy people in the world, I grow on people. I laughed at that one. This same friend has also wondered at my popularity status and why everyone knows my name. I didn't even try to explain that one. The best I can say is that I try to be genuine in all things. I never realized how uncommon that was until recently, after people kept coming up to me and saying "You're so honest! I love that about you." And I really wonder about everyone else. Oh, this post is going nowhere. What I really want to say is that I appreciate the appreciation.

I also want to say that I really enjoy doing what I do. I keep hearing from people that I'm sort of like one of those supreme forces of good in the world. I try to take that perception to heart, particularly on those days when I feel more like the Devil's mistress. I want to do good in your life. Yes you, closeted blog reader. So if you haven't been open to me before this, please take the time to open your heart. Too cliche? Yup. You know me, I rock all sorts of weird things. And if you know a way that I could be doing good in your life, can you please tell me? Granted, I'm not a fairy godmother. Hell, I'm human, but I just want to do good. No joke. Please don't take this as me being kind of stuck-up and giving myself license to tamper with others. You might do so anyway, but I just sincerely want to help you. That's why I do a lot of the things that I do at school. They're not ego trips or ways for me to sound really cool to colleges. They're ways for me to connect to people who I respect, admire, or would just like to be happy.

Please also realize that I am not only this one side. There are so many sides of my personality that never really are seen by other people. Many people don't believe that I have a serious side. This is false. I do. But I do everything with a smile, and everything I am serious about is about joy. I seriously am committed to making others happy. I am seriously committed to music. I am seriously committed to my friends. This includes all the weird acquaintances I tend to crop up with. I am seriously committed to life. I am seriously committed to love. I am seriously committed to loving life.

I hope that everyone else is too.