One day, a very hot one, I, Marissa, around 12 years of age, walked to a local convenience store for some candy. It was summer, I had time to kill. My mom had sent me with a five dollar bill,and told me to buy her a Reeces. “ Not the king size though, sweetie. You know I'm trying to lose weight! Have fun! Be careful! Oh! And make sure not to lolly gag. Don't let my Reeces melt!” I decided I would buy a Snickers bar for myself, and perhaps a soda pop, most likely Dr. Pepper. Nothing beats Dr. Pepper. I hadn't decided if I'd get that though.
On that very humid day, My hair started to curl. And as any young adult knows, when your hair curls due to humidity.. It's not very pretty. Why this horrid weather must make my hair go hay-wire, I have no idea. I just don't understand why, at this crucial age in life, where you either make it or break it, Mother Nature decides to make my hair go crazy?
When I told my mom of her hardships, such as these, she usually just brushed them aside with comments like “Well I like it.” or “It doesn't look bad, sweetie.” While I, however, would be screaming in my head “Well I HATE it! And it does look bad! Are you blind?!”.
Of course, this would never be said, unless quietly under my breath. If I wanted to impress boys, I'd have to have straight hair that looks decent. And I can't be all hot and sweaty with curly hair. And not pretty curly.
Humid curly.
Only a couple more blocks to the 7/11, I thought to myself. Maybe my hair won't look to bad when I get there. Hopefully. Then I thought about when I was younger and didn't care about how I looked. Didn't care if my hair was incredibly oily and knotty, and how any boy could stand to be in my presence, let alone look at me, when I must have looked so barbaric.
Were my clothes matching? Did I wear plaids and stripes at the same time? Oh no. Did I wear red and orange together ? These are normal thoughts for me, Marissa Leeland.
I'm glad I'm a young adult now, and care about how I look, otherwise I'd be nowhere in this world today, I mean nowhere! I wonder if Billy ever thought I looked ugly... I thought to myself.
Billy was my best friend since 2nd grade. We had playdates all the time when we were children. Our parents were good friends, so us kids were a pretty good excuse to have to get together and chat. Billy and I didn't mind though. More time to play, really. But now that we are both young adults, I considered the slightly scary fact that maybe I liked Billy more than just a friend now. It'd be so weird though.. And we were just friends. Nothing more. I hadn't fully decided on the matter yet, you see. I was still on the fence about it.
Billy was very tall, and already in July, only several weeks into the summer, he had sprouted what seemed like four inches. Let's just say he had gotten very tall very quickly, as compared to me, being very short. And staying that way.
The nice thing about your brain is that when you get to thinking about something hard enough like I do, it can completely occupy you, as if you are doing things subconsciously. You completely zone out. And that's exactly what I did, laughably. Who knows what kind of crazy face I had on while thinking about this! These very deep and scary thoughts kept me completely occupied all the way until I got to the 7/11. I hadn't even realized I already walked in and was holding her Snickers bar, looking for the Reeces.
