A Little Girl I Had the Honor of Knowing

 

There’s this little girl I knew years and years ago. She was the kind of girl who laughed with every step and smiled with every breath. She was the kind of girl who thought sharing meant giving away everything she had so others could be happy. (Except with her little brother, of course) She was the girl who split her time between going on adventures in her books and loving her friends and family as much as she could.

 

“She’s different,” priests, parents, and teachers would say to her mother after they met her, even as young as a few years old. “Her path is going different places.”

 

She was quite too young to take those words seriously, and never let it ruin her humble nature.

 

She just kept reading, loving, and smiling because it made her and everyone around her so happy. Her eyes lit up every time she learned something new or got to play with her family. Her brother and her created a whole world together with rules, people, and unbreakable promises. She made up games, she made her own trails, and taking risks was her greatest thrill. Even if it was as simple as feeding the stray dog her mother told her not to. “He was hungry though! Where else is he going to find food?”, her brother and her would say.

 

She created worlds of her own no matter where she went. Her day dreams ran just a little wilder than most, and sometimes she lived in her own head because of it. She wrote songs, stories, and poems. She wanted to cure all the diseases she saw on the streets of India. She wanted to get them off the streets. Every time she passed a begger on the street, everyone around her threw sympathy and a couple coins. She, however, would not stop thinking about it for hours after. She knew that’s not the way things had to be. She just did not understand why she had all the love in the world when they had nothing. She could never understand why she received support both financially and spiritually no matter where she was in life. She wondered if the the little girl and her mother on the street had a similar relationship to her and her mom. She wondered if the other girl felt the same way she felt when her mother would leave to get food. And if she cried too when her mother was just a little late and it was dark.

 

The older she got, the more people outwardly told her how intelligent she was. She felt expectations growing every time she achieved anything. Winning writing contests, drawing contests, math contests, but she just loved the thrill of just doing it. As expectations grew from everyone around her, the questions addressed to her became more selfish and the thrills started disappearing. Teachers treated her differently because they knew she could handle the challenges thrown at her.

 

The expectations ruined her and she had no desire to succeed because her success was for other’s selfish needs or led to the circulation of bad vibes from those who wanted it too. She let herself get distracted by the surface, the surface that she never even cared to think about before. She let it consume her until she became sad.

 

She was forced to see the “realities” of life. Her imagination turned sour. She went  into the only safe place she knew, back into her own head to hide. However, now the demons lived there too.The demons lived there for almost eight years.

They still live there, but they quickly disintegrate at the sight of the newly discovered light in her head.

I actually had the privilege of being reunited with her for a few months in the beginning of this year because of a wonderful man. Then she disappeared again when the man left. But this time, I know exactly where to find her. The little girl still exists.

 

 

This little girl is me.

 

 

“Don’t Forget To Love Her. The Little Girl You Used To Be. Perhaps She

  Lies Within You. Untucked. Sleeping Peacefully.” -Kiana Llanos