Ageism runs deep.
It runs (ran) through my veins bitterly.
There I was, twelve years old, just walking around the park barefoot pretending that I was in a Disney cartoon. Running through freshly cut grass (hindsight, not the best thing to do), singing to trees, pretending to be an Olympic ice skater on my roller blades in the basketball court. The occasional stuff that I did.
Those were good times. I walked on the open grass; the wind was blowing and singing sweetly to my ears. The park was empty and the sky was gray blue I think. I found a spot in the middle of the empty basketball court and laid there. Weird things happened when I wished hard, so I didn’t wish if I didn’t mean it. I just laid there… feeling; floating in the gentle flow of the wind. I imagined the man I would love one day; a prince on a horse who follows me. Who always finds me. With my hair spread out on the ground, I looked at the sky with a smile on my face. Thinking about my future, thinking about my handsome, manly, wise prince. I closed my eyes and stayed in this state of bliss; I could feel him, he was so close to me in my thoughts, he was whispering through the air to me. I sighed and gently opened my eyes.
I shrieked and abruptly got up after I saw a smiling little face pop over me and block the blue skies above. It was an obnoxious little boy; someone completely different than who I had imagined. I was so angry at that little boy afterwards. I was completely irritated that my privacy and tranquility had been ruined by some annoying little kid. I treated everyone younger than me with no real respect in my head, especially younger boys. They automatically turned into little brothers and they were seen as annoying little roadblocks along the way.
Granted he was nine and I was twelve; in my eyes I was decades older. After he caught me, he became completely smitten by me. With the basketball in his hands, he giggled at everything I had to say, like, “Get out of here!” at him. It was already annoying to be caught by a little kid during vulnerable times, but it was even worse to have earned his undivided attention and whole heart. I felt disgusted and wanted to wash him off like dirt. But no matter what I said or did, he kept wanting to be near me. It was a vile situation. I felt like a sicko thinking that a kid three years younger than me was completely in love with me. Feeling mentally nauseated and humiliated, I ran away. But then, that annoying kid started running after me. We were running down that park amid cut grass, me genuinely running away, him, giggling with a basketball in his hands chasing after me; as if I was playing hard to get. I wasn’t playing. I hid behind a building like fearing for my life, however, that obnoxious kid found me. I then ran away again and he ran after me again, laughing. I was mortified that someone could have seen this fiasco; me being chased by a nine year old. Gross, I could have been his baby sitter.
Damn, it’s weird to think that if I was a hundred, he’d have been ninety-seven. Grosssssss.
