Sunday, August 2, 2009

We Think Too Much And Feel Too Little.

"What they don't understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you're eleven, you're also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don't. You open your eyes and everything's just like yesterday, only it's today. And you don't feel eleven at all. You feel like you're still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes you eleven. Like some days you might say something stupid, and that's the part of you that's still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on your mama's lap because you're scared, and that's the part of you that's five. And maybe one day when you're all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you're three, and that's okay. That's what I tell Mama when she's sad and needs to cry. Maybe she's feeling three. Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That's how being eleven years old is."



Oh how true. I definitely don't feel 18 sometimes.
It's reassuring to know that I can still be 5 years old when I get all excited over simple things like ice-cream.
Or when I look at soft cuddly toys and feel all fuzzy inside I know that's my 8 year old self.
Or even when I make weird faces across the dinner table fully accompanied with strange noises I can feel my 10 year old self again.
Or when I'm awkward and have no idea what to say to during social situations, that's when my 12 year old self comes to life.
And then when I become all klutzy and trip and fall over everything I know that's my 14 year old self.


Or that could just be me, in general, being clumsy. =.=

3 comments:

Joanne said...

Swan! =D
Nice paragraph of words! :)
where did this come from? XD

Swan.T said...

You know, I have no idea who the original author of the quote is. I just saw it one day at a random site and thought it was meaningful so I saved it. =)

Glad u found it nice too! A little reminder to us all that it's okay to be 11 years old again! ;)

siok said...

i like this piece of words too! :D