Grey Matter of an Irish Aries

Being a Teenager Again

The old woman stared out the window and sighed. Her rocker rocked back and forth and the wooden floor beneath her creaked with the movement. The room in which the old woman dwelled held very few items. There was a small, round table; on it, a beige lamp shaped like a semi-clock rested, unfazed by anything that happened. She paused, remembering the “good old days” when the townspeople had greatly admired her work. Also, in the room, was a bed, with a mattress raised high off the ground, for the woman had no strength in her back to bend down.

As before, she stared out the window and sighed. She was looking at a group of teenagers across the street; they were kicking a ball among themselves. Up and down the ball went, and just when it was going to hit the ground, someone who would swoop his foot under it and send it flying back into the air. The woman was fascinated with this scene, since it reminded her of a game she used to play with her friends back when she was a little girl, which to her seemed like a century. And because it was so long ago, she couldn’t remember the name. Gazing at the happy youngsters, she longed to be with them. She no longer enjoyed her plain, routine life. She had accomplished her life goals, so now what was the point of living?

She studied the young adults’ motions and prayed to God for them. They could do all those things that humans were supposed to able to do - run, jump, throw friendly punches. The female could barely lift her arms, never mind throw a punch. She could barely walk, never mind run. These teens didn’t understand just how lucky they were to have these abilities. They had a million reasons to live and a long time to accomplish these achievements. She wanted to be with them and do those wonderful things that they were able to do.

Ah…they were beginning to slack off down below. Another good quality of being young. They had no worries. They were young enough to get more sleep in the daytime, unlike all those years and years and years where she had to rise at seven to get to work. They didn’t have to live in a nursing home, where one wasn’t even capable of taking a bath without some kind of help. They could feed and take care of themselves. Yep, teens had it easy. They had perfect lives. She once had a perfect life. Then she grew older and developed everlasting wrinkles. She lost all her glory and beauty.

Those teenagers enjoyed life and the delightful things that came with it. They were free to live their lives as they wanted. They weren’t prisoners. They could go to sleep at three in the morning and wake up at noon. They could make their own choices, whether it was one about which movie to see or what time to go out to dinner or what to do on Saturday night. She was a hostage in this place, a jailbird with no way out of the cubicle she had been in for years and years and years. She dreamed of the day when she could be able to break free: escape and relive one good day of her youth.

She dreamed of the day when she could live life again, as life should be lived, in her opinion. It was not something to squander and this place was a waste. She remembered holding life in the palm of her hand, cradling it for hours lying on her bed. She wanted to take life for granted one last time. It slipped away sometime during all those hours where she held it and before she knew it, it had risen into the sky like a magician vanishing into thin air. It just left her and gone up, up, up and away. She dreamed of being a teenager again, of having healthy and spiriting youth again, and she dreamed f or the rest of her life.