14

by Lisa

Fourteen is hard. The world got so big so fast.

I used to be a buffer, but now I am a gatekeeper. My efforts at keeping out Big Things come to less every year, every month, every week. The world gives me the creeps and it’s full of creeps. I talk about what ifs, but I can’t know what every one looks like. The world got too big, and I was too slow.

Fourteen flies too far, just a little. Gets tired and bruised and scraped sometimes. My band-aids don’t stick. Fourteen picks them off and smirks at the blood rather than take time to heal. Sometimes.

I need to leap a step in front of fourteen and push a few of the bigger things out of the way, to make the way the right amount of difficult. Instead, fourteen rolls on without me and looks back to offer fashion advice and throws me a glowing, beaming, astounding smile. When we have no smiles, we go ahead and cry, with our hearts breaking into pieces over we don’t know what. Sometimes fourteen’s eyes probably almost roll out of a head, but I am spared the view of that.

So we grow together, with the world.  We try to trust. I push the gate closed and fourteen leaps over the fence. I crack the gate and fourteen thanks me and waves goodbye, so I choose to leave it open a bit more.

Sometimes.