I'm afraid of numbers

I heard on a movie once that life is like a box of chocolates. It was cold here last week, I wore a pretty blue scarf and it blew in the wind, but today it was 97 degrees fahrenheit so I'd have to agree that you never know what you're gonna get. When the night time comes I listen to my roommate party with her friends in the living room - it's her birthday so it's ok - but there's a hole in the wall that lets the sound come straight in and I have to listen to Wilco with my iPod turned up high against my eardrums so I can sleep without laughter. It's kinda funny. I'm afraid of numbers. I used to have panic attacks whenever a big math test was coming up, and the school nurse wouldn't let me go home because, she said, it was good for me. I'm still afraid of numbers, like the ones I see when I step on a scale or when the ATM machine shouts out how much money I have left in my account. Then I miss the good old days when I was a little younger, a little smaller, and a lot more taken care of. No one ever said that becoming an adult would be hard. Sure I can vote and buy cigarettes and use as many credit cards as they send me in the mail; but what happens when my vote is over ruled by super delegates and I cope by charging a pack of menthol Virginia Slims straight to my athlete-induced asthmatic lungs? Maybe I'll eat some popcorn. I'd like that. But I also heard on the news about 'popcorn lung' from the microwaveable bags that contain too many chemicals so I'm scared I'll end up like those gray middle aged people with their throats cut open so they can breathe. I don't think I'd like that. I wish Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman still played on TV. She was always able to figure out a cure for all the cowboys and indians. My family used to sit down and watch that show together, mostly because my mom liked it and my dad was too afraid to tell her it wasn't his taste. I'm proud to be an American when my childhood memories consist of doting upon Hollywood impressions of genocide, giggling at other people's blunders on America's Funniest Home Videos, and tapping off every Sunday night with my entire family's attention to the Simpsons, when Bart would write something new on the black board. All this was done with a big buttery bowl of popcorn in front of me, and people wonder why I am this way? I don't wonder, but I shrug when they ask. Growing into this age has been like having a very elegant carpet pulled out from under me in a swift and sudden motion. As I fall, the air dances across my face and plays with my hair, twisting it into ringlets as if it were long and curly, like Shirley Temple when she'd take a bow; the air feels good, a little warm, like driving along the coast with the top down good. But then my body comes to grips with reality and I'm flat on the floor by myself without cushion. Now they say 'that's life.' Coulda woulda shoulda wish I'd known. And no, you don't know what you're gonna get. When I was a kid I had a healthy imagination, which I think is pretty good and normal. In third grade I was walking home from school, down the little hill past the hedges that lined the sidewalk and perfect shingled houses peaked out from behind them. I used to talk to myself about the boys I liked and what I'd say to them in a fit of passion, and sometimes I'd talk out loud. It seemed okay because I was 9. One day a neighbor girl walked up from behind me and asked me who I was talking to. It was embarrassing. I didn't say "Landon" because I knew he was only in my mind, so that's the day I stopped imagining things and I quit believing in love. I smiled in a way and kept walking a few steps ahead of her so she wouldn't see me blush, or maybe so she wouldn't see me cry, I can't remember. It was warm that day, I remember that, but there was still a little bit of melting slush in the gutters. It looked like wet cement from all the car exhaust that attached to it, but I hardly noticed. That's how things are. Snow melts. It gets hot. And dreams meet the cold hearted death of reality. But it's ok. I'm 24. That's how things are.