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[EARLY OCTOBER, SATURDAY]
"How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" I mumbled mindlessly to myself as I tossed my 2014 signed tennis ball toward the ceiling, letting it fall back against my palm to rest. My arm was beginning to grow weak as I ogled the round object in the clutch of my fingers. My imagination took a front-row seat as I stared at the ball, envisioning the sphere as the floating rock that happened to be the one all mankind lived on.
Earth.
There was so much of it I haven't got the chance to see. For the majority of my life, I was stuck inside the four walls of my house living the same mundane way of life. Although I did have it easier than a generation of people before, I'm sure. I knew there were plenty of children younger than me or even around my age that didn't even have a family. There was nothing wrong with my home, but I had grown bored of it.
The faded magenta wallpaper, to the tall window to the right of my sheeted bed that cast an incandescent light upon my floor mirror; wearied my spirit of staying indoors.
So, most of my days were spent here, in my room or sometimes out in the yard, gazing at the censure in the spring and breathing in the sharp cool air of the winter. I'd take it in until the very last second of retreat, my lungs burned with the yearning for the outdoors.
I wanted to see it, to breathe it all in at once. "Jimin! Jimin, you can't stay in your room all day like this- it isn't healthy. Breakfast is on the table." My halmoni suggested, her voice strained and strung with concern. She was right to be. I hadn't moved from the confines of my room just yet, and all because of one thought. What if I could just leave?
Where would I go?
"I'm not that hungry, halmoni! I'll be down for dinner!" I shouted back to the older through the closed door of my room. With my thoughts slightly disturbed, I tried to push past my wishful thinking.
My halmoni loved me.
She completely adored my every move. It was eventually to the point where she wanted me in her sight and under her care at all times. So, with that, I had to a pay small price. I didn't go to school with everyone else- I stayed where I belonged, home.
Even without my halmoni admitting it, I felt her emotions were stemming from the obvious fact she was my only option at surviving. Years ago, my eomma gave her last words as she gave birth to I didn't have a clue of who she was, the womanly face and existence, for me, were blurred out. I only knew her name for now, and that was enough for me. My halmoni, in return, out of the goodness in her heart, took me in and raised me from my infantile stage, all the way to my eighteen-year-old self.
Eventually, my halmoni's labored footsteps pattered away from my door and I let out a sigh, my arm falling to the side of my body.
I didn't want to leave her side.
But I wanted to broaden my horizons.
To explore far and wide.
I could picture myself having so much fun. Laughing as I ran over pure white-sanded beaches in an as bedazzled swimsuit without a care in the world, smiling while diving into the crystal waters of the ocean, dancing with a stranger, and falling in love with the man of my dreams, just like any rom-com seen on the big screen.
It sounded like a dream, a whirlwind of imagination and fantasy- brainstorming, was what I called it for months on end after I turned eighteen.
But the clock was ticking, and every day I was growing older. My 19th birthday was just around the corner- well in eight days to be exact. For a while now my birthday wasn't anything too extravagant, but as I grew older, I began to realize that I was missing out on so many activities. And as each precious second passed and slowed within in the movements of my life, I wasn't giving up on the ideas I had.
Whirring sounded from my phone that I left on the opposite end of the bed. In one swift motion, I sat up and peeked at the brightly lit screen that displayed a text message from the only friend I had. We had met online one day after I was scrolling on Instagram, hoping to luck out on anyone who would talk to me or even send a funny meme. He had been the only one that spared me a few words.
Sadly, he lived across the world in Chicago. I would even go as far as to call him my accidental best friend.
