on a joyful girl

On the subway this morning with the earphones in to keep everything else out when Ani comes on in the shuffle.  A song I haven’t heard in years and by the time the first verse is over I am in my brother's apartment in Boston listening to it for the first time 15 years ago.  It was hot out then.  August maybe.  We sat in front of the windows that opened to the back of the building where later that night Cris would point out the rats across the way and I would hate him for knowing my childhood fear. 

I fell in love with a life away then, with all that he had living there.  Wanting to stay a little longer and dreading going home just to move every Sunday between my parents, of even one more month in my hometown.  I swallowed back crying when I heard the song that night but tears were nothing new, that summer fell smack in the midst of the “Cait the Great Queen of Doom” years (or so named by my high school English teacher).  I didn’t think there’d ever be a time when I wouldn’t be sad or angry at what had happened to our family*. 

For a minute listening now I remember what it felt like then and wish I could go back and tell that girl on the couch in Boston that it gets better.  That in time her parents start acting like grownups and stop being so difficult.  That it won't always hurt.  Maybe then her English teacher could call her something else.  But maybe then she wouldn’t feel so happy to have all that I do now.  I’ll try not to wish to change her so much.

Do it for the joy it brings,

because I am a joyful girl.

Cause the world owes me nothing

we owe each other the world.

*I've read some of my journal entries from this time to Mike and, after hearing them, he promised to burn them if anything were to happen to me.  If you think I'm dramatic now, believe me, 16 year old me was a doozy.