19 Wooden Dolls

The past two days I've worked a little more than 12 hour days. It's been exhausting, but rewarding. In the mornings I helped take down our City Pool's "Bubble" in preparation for the Summer season and in the evenings I've been training in my new position at Cafe Rio. After day two I'm thoroughly sun-burnt and sore. The knots in my back would be unbearable except that I'm used to the seemingly chronic tension in my back muscles. I also got a super cool bruise from dropping the weight of an overly-heavy bench on my thigh...you see I'm not totally useless upper-body wise, but I'm so much stronger in my legs that I tend to resort to them. And I, unfortunately, got in a bit of trouble for not reporting my injury since I heard something kind of squish weird when it dropped. Yeah, it bruised fast, but it didn't hurt that bad and I've had worse so I figured I'd be fine and it wasn't a big deal...well think again, because today I was kindly and firmly informed otherwise. Does sunburn count as "injury" cause I'd love to get workman's compensation for that! ;) I'm also starting to catch on at Cafe Rio too! Supposedly I'm learning really quickly and I really enjoy the environment and the employees. I think as far as work goes it's going to be a really good summer. Oh and McKenzie and I got to go to the college ward together! I had fun going "Indian" style and I got a new calling! Ward Music Chairman, so we'll see how that goes. :)

I am officially 19! It's taken a few days to sink in, mostly because when I woke up on May 28th I didn't feel any different. This is what usually happens on my birthdays, no sudden transformation or epiphany of defined maturity, so I wasn't really surprised that I felt quite unaffected when I woke up. It actually reminded me of a passage I'd read by Sandra Cisneros called, "Eleven."

         "What they don't understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you're eleven, you're also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don't. You open your eyes and everything's just like yesterday, only it's today. And you don't feel eleven at all. You feel like you're still ten. And you are--underneath the year that makes you eleven.
         Like some days you might say something stupid, and that's the part of you that's still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on you mama's lap because you're scared, and that's the part of you that's five. And maybe one day when you're all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you're three, and that's okay. That's what I tell Mama when she's sad and needs to cry. Maybe she's feeling three.         
          Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That's how being eleven years old is.
         You don't feel eleven. Not right away. It takes a few days, weeks even, sometimes even months before you say Eleven when they ask you. And you don't feel smart eleven, not until you're almost twelve. That's the way it is."

These feelings set aside I had a wonderful birthday. The day was incredibly relaxing watching Monte Carlo while posting about poetry. Having a family barbeque and party and taking a walk with Mom and Brittney while Tanner played Frisbee Golf with Jason and McKenzie and Dad was exercising. Tanner gave me the complete Sherlock Holmes Collection and Brittney helped finish off my Jane Austen Collection with Northanger Abbey and my parents with Mansfield Park and Persuasion. I also got money to do with whatever helps me the most whether that's books, clothes, or other random expenses that seem to consistently pop up. I got tons of birthday wishes via Facebook and text which actually touched me quite a bit and I got an email from Spencer which I'd been hoping for, and looking forward to, all week. But soon McKenzie left, back to Rexburg, and the day was over. I was able to talk to Sarah on the phone as a perfect ending to the day, and my special day had passed.

The way time passes has intrigued me lately. In the moment time moves so slowly, yet looking back it passes quicker than we'd realized. I'm nineteen...somehow that doesn't quite sink in. My last year of being a teenager, a time in my life I thought would never pass, and here I am on the cusp of a whole new adventure. How is it that I feel no different yet I know if I could have seen myself now, even a few years sooner, I wouldn't have recognized myself? Time passes quickly, and I ask, will I keep up? Time passes slowly, and I ask, will the agonizing wait ever end? Time it is sudden, in a blink it is gone, but time it can crawl, in a moment too long. Time ever passes, it ticking away, so savor each moment cause time, it won't stay. A measurement of man to help us to see, the vastness of being, of time, of eternity. I still feel so young, at other times I feel old. A bridge to a new world? Or the last whispers of a past that's now cold... At times I am confident, and I stand with nothing to hide. At other times my nineteen years "rattle...like pennies in a tin Band-Aid box" not much inside. I wonder can I do it? Whatever this year holds? You see, I'm nineteen. Just nineteen wooden dolls. And somehow...somehow that doesn't quite sink in.

-Natalie Cherie