Eleven

I didn't write this, but I wish I did. I guess I say that about a lot of things, but at least Sandra Cisneros did a great job with it. Ever since I read it in high school, it usually frequents my mind around my birthday.

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.

You don't feel eleven. Not right away. It takes a few days, weeks even, sometimes even months before you say Eleven when they ask you. And you don't feel smart eleven, not until you're almost twelve. That's the way it is.

Only today I wish I didn't have only eleven years rattling inside me like pennies in a tin Band-Aid box. Today I wish I was one hundred and two instead of eleven because if I was one hundred and two I'd have known what to say when Mrs. Price put the red sweater on my desk. I would've known how to tell her it wasn't mine instead of just sitting there with that look on my face and nothing coming out of my mouth.

"Whose is this?" Mrs. Price says, and she holds the red sweater up in the air for all the class to see. "Whose? It's been sitting in the coatroom for a month."

"Not mine," says everybody, "Not me."

"It has to belong to somebody," Mrs. Price keeps saying, but nobody can remember. It's an ugly sweater with red plastic buttons and a collar and sleeves all stretched out like you could use it for a jump rope. It's maybe a thousand years old and even if it belonged to me I wouldn't say so.

Maybe because I'm skinny, maybe because she doesn't like me, that stupid Sylvia Saldivar says, "I think it belongs to Rachel." An ugly sweater like that all raggedy and old, but Mrs. Price believes her. Mrs Price takes the sweater and puts it right on my desk, but when I open my mouth nothing comes out.

"That's not, I don't, you're not . . . Not mine." I finally say in a little voice that was maybe
me when I was four.

"Of course it's yours," Mrs. Price says. "I remember you wearing it once." Because she's older and the teacher, she's right and I'm not.

Not mine, not mine, not mine, but Mrs. Price is already turning to page thirty-two, and math problem number four. I don't know why but all of a sudden I'm feeling sick inside, like the part of me that's three wants to come out of my eyes, only I squeeze them shut tight and bite down on my teeth real hard and try to remember today I am eleven, eleven. Mama is making a cake for me for tonight, and when Papa comes home everybody will sing Happy birthday, happy birthday to you.

But when the sick feeling goes away and I open my eyes, the red sweater's still sitting there like a big red mountain. I move the red sweater to the corner of my desk with my ruler. I move my pencil and books and eraser as far from it as possible. I even move my chair a little to the right. Not mine, not mine, not mine.

In my head I'm thinking how long till lunchtime, how long till I can take the red sweater and throw it over the schoolyard fence, or leave it hanging on a parking meter, or bunch it up into a little ball and toss it in the alley. Except when math period ends Mrs. Price says loud and in front of everybody, "Now, Rachel, that's enough," because she sees I've shoved the red sweater to the tippy-tip corner of my desk and it's hanging all over the edge like a waterfall, but I don't care.

"Rachel," Mrs. Price says. She says it like she's getting mad. "You put that sweater on right now and no more nonsense."

"But it's not—"

"Now!" Mrs. Price says.

This is when I wish I wasn't eleven because all the years inside of me—ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one—are pushing at the back of my eyes when I put one arm through one sleeve of the sweater that smells like cottage cheese, and then the other arm through the other and stand there with my arms apart like if the sweater hurts me and it does, all itchy and full of germs that aren't even mine.

That's when everything I've been holding in since this morning, since when Mrs. Price put the sweater on my desk, finally lets go, and all of a sudden I'm crying in front of everybody. I wish I was invisible but I'm not. I'm eleven and it's my birthday today and I'm crying like I'm three in front of everybody. I put my head down on the desk and bury my face in my stupid clown-sweater arms. My face all hot and spit coming out of my mouth because I can't stop the little animal noises from coming out of me until there aren't any more tears left in my eyes, and it's just my body shaking like when you have the hiccups, and my whole head hurts like when you drink milk too fast.

But the worst part is right before the bell rings for lunch. That stupid Phyllis Lopez, who is even dumber than Sylvia Saldivar, says she remembers the red sweater is hers! I take it off right away and give it to her, only Mrs. Price pretends like everything's okay.

Today I'm eleven. There's a cake Mama's making for tonight and when Papa comes home from work we'll eat it. There'll be candles and presents and everybody will sing Happy birthday, happy birthday to you, Rachel, only it's too late.

I'm eleven today. I'm eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one, but I wish I was one hundred and two. I wish I was anything but eleven, because I want today to be far away already, far away like a runaway balloon, like a tiny o in the sky, so tiny tiny you have to close your eyes to see it.

And that's it. Of the story, anyway.

So this doesn't have a lot to do with the whole birthday thing (although the birthday email I got from a certain someone made me so happy that I practically cried), but do you know what it's like to yearn for the same thing/person/occurrence day in and day out for months, even years? Do you know what it's like to drive in your car, imagining them to be there; or to sit at work, looking outside the window while it's slow, staring at two morning doves find food together, and feeling the anticipation build--even though you have months to go? Well, if you have, you know it sure makes the time go by slowly. And yet, even if it were to go by faster, I think it may still be too slow for me.

I start my spring term at Portland State this upcoming Tuesday! I'm not looking forward to my accounting class, except for the part about it being over. It's going to be an interesting term, considering the fact that on both Tuesdays and Thursdays my first class starts at 8:00am, which means I need to be ready to leave my house around 6:30am. I hope it isn't too hard for me to get used to waking up early! I'm such a night owl most of the time.

The Way You Detract

It is where the tall things are
That I have been--
Studying the stone,
the windows, the lights--
Should I not feel small?
Should I not feel meager--
For there are more hands
Than I could count?
But I do not feel small;
I do not feel meager,
As I stand in awe of
The contrast,
The walls,
The bridges--
Until I see the places,
The places we have been,
The places we could go.
And then I feel small
And then I feel meager,
Because you are not here--
For all the beautiful places
I breathe in when you are away,
Are ugly to me
Without your face.

Donuts Taught Me How to Stop Studying

When I was a senior in high school, my AP Economics teacher brought a dozen donuts to school one day in order to demonstrate the concept of marginal utility and how it generally decreases as more units are consumed/obtained; the tiny girl eating the donuts really enjoyed the first few donuts, but the benefits she felt she was receiving started decreasing dramatically as more donuts were consumed--which was evident by the look on her face!

Little did my econ teacher know that in college I would apply such a principle to studying in college! I spent three and a half hours studying for my financial accounting final that's tomorrow morning and, as time went on, my enjoyment--which was already low to begin with--continued to decrease and the last two chapters I was to go over I reviewed quite sloppily. My logic in stopping was that my marginal benefit in continuing to study must have been decreasing and, therefore, if I continued to spend time studying, it would make a smaller difference on my test score than the difference that was made during the first chunks of time I spent studying.

We'll just pretend that makes sense and that economic principles are applicable to real life situations and that I have feasibly adequate justifications in not studying any longer.

Now if that didn't dissuade you from reading the rest of this blog than I'm quite sure nothing will!

Unless you're a guy and you're offended when I say that I'm sick of people like you :)

But okay, I'll be honest: so it really isn't the male species fault for much of my tiresome evocations. I could try to go into some detailed explanation about my complaint, but I'll just leave fact as fact.

So I came up with and wrote down eight things that truly encompass the type of person I should always aspire and desire to be:

I am honest.
I am clean.
I am chaste.
I am strong.
I choose principles over passions.
I am ambitious.
I have honor and integrity.
I don't live my life in fear.
I am humble.

I'm definitely still working on some of those, but I figured that, if I have something written out that I tell myself every day that helps me stay focused, then I'll be able to better become what I can, should and want to become. Of course, those words are vain without action; but action is so much more likely to come about when thoughts become more tangible with words and documentation--it's almost like a promise.

I could write more, but I'm in a cynically sarcastic mood and writing usually doesn't make me feel better during those moments--unless it's symbolic or poetry or a mixture of the two, which I don't have time for, unfortunately. I'll write more another time.