Author's Note:
I'm back! HAHA
And I spent all yesterday with my inspiration coming up with new ideas! Woohoo!
Please let me know if you like Celia!
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I spend a lot of time looking in the mirror.
My friend Devon says I’m conceited, but I just like the way I look. It’s not about being better than everyone else. At least, that’s what my parents taught me growing up. They say it’s about being comfortable with your own self. I’m sure they weren’t talking about looks, and were actually talking about the choices that you make, but I think it’s applicable to both.
Today is the first day of my senior year, and I’ve come a long way. I’ve gone through a lot of phases throughout my life. Obviously at one point I was a baby, and can’t remember a thing from when I was very little. Thankfully, my mother thinks memories are super important. Dad said she walked around with me on one hip and a video camera on the other, permanently.
My mom is a lot of things, mainly beautiful. My boy friends never fail to comment on this when they see her in person. I inherited her blonde curls and her blue eyes. Otherwise, I look like my dad. She’s smart and wary: she had to grow up fast. My mom spent her sophomore year dealing not only with my father, but her best friend’s death, cancer, chemotherapy, and pregnancy. (I was that baby)
They worry a lot about me and I tell myself it’s because I was a chemo-baby, meaning she got pregnant right after she stopped receiving treatments. In all honesty, it could be just because I’m not the brightest crayon in the box. I’m a very bubbly person, and sometimes my personality spills over its confined space in my brain and takes over.
But I look at myself in the mirror and I see who I am. I’m real, no matter what people have to say about me. Call me fake, two-faced, mean, blonde, stupid, or obnoxious but I’m still me at the end of every day. I’ll go through many changes in my life, but I’ll always be myself.
Oh, and my dad, he’s different. He’s a lot like grandpa- strong, quiet, and acts completely different around me than he does around the rest of the world. He’s got sandy-blonde hair, brown eyes, and a scowl permanently pressed onto his face. There are a lot of things about him I admire though. He had to create a career for himself, fresh out of high school with a very small chance of getting his college degree. While my mom went to school, my dad worked his butt off all day to save money for me and all night studying for his college classes.
When I look in the mirror, I don’t ask myself who I am or where I’ve come from. I know the answers already. What I ask myself is where I’m going, and how I’m going to get there.
“Celia,” my mom calls, interrupting my day dreams.
“Coming,” I call, finishing applying my lipstick before I leave my room. I flick off the lights and the lavender walls dim to dark purple. I close the door quietly and hurry down the stairs, struggling to maintain my balance in heels on the carpet.
“Good luck,” is all my mother says as she takes in the heels and hands me my car keys. I give her my best “I-can-handle-it” smile and bounce out the garage door. From the doorway my mom punches in the code the door lifts automatically. I start my engine and wave once before I back carefully out of the driveway onto the street.
My dad taught me how to drive when I was thirteen. From that point on whenever a car needed to be moved around on the driveway that was my job. He says that’s how he learned. I turn on the radio to my favorite station and listen to rap the five minute drive to school. It’s only time for one song.
