Acid Wash Purple

It's so easy to visualize his blonde fohawk weaving among the piles of students wobbling around in the hallways. Always easy to spot with his acid wash purple sweatshirt, receiving eye rolls from most who heard his obnoxious chatter.

Regardless, I admired him. He was who I aspired to be.  In my eyes he was a god.

In contrast, I was a speck of dust.

I smiled when I needed to, I searched my brain to make sure the comment I was about to make would coincide with the opinions of those around me, and I made sure to not move a finger out of place unless I was positive it would be approved by every living being. I didn't comprehend that what I was doing was out of place. That there were people out there whose words spoke their own personal truth. That the key to happiness was not to ensure everyone else's happiness with you, but instead to reflect within oneself and be content.

That's the type of person he was. He was the obnoxious drummer in the back of band class, each tap reigning with confidence. His lips only spoke of the theories determined by his own mind. He wore the cool checkered vans and a multitude of hats, always running his mouth and being a total badass. He didn't care. He was content with himself, and he wore it proudly. He naturally seeped sureness, never stopping to rethink  his statements or  be bothered by others looking down at him.

I glorified him. I yearned to be like him. Sure, I thought he was a total James Dean and would do anything to replace his girlfriend, but my infatuation with him went past that. He was my muse. In moments of doubt I would think, "What would he do?" He lit the flame inside me that let me become a independent being.

The combat boots I wear, the obsessive darkness in all my paintings, and most importantly the ability to form grounded opinions and remembering to keep myself from thinking I'm below others all stems from the obnoxious man I looked up to. Even though saying I owe my life to him is a stretch, I defiantly owe him the transformation from the speck of dust that I was into the band t-shirt wearing blonde that I am.

Sadly, now he dresses like an old man and is a complete unrefined ignorant crude.

But I still regard him as the most influential individual in my life thus far.

Adulthood

Living in one of the rundown districts in New Jersey, my classmates and I were given the opportunity to apply to public academies and technical schools that were above the standards of the high schools in our area. That taste of freedom of getting to choose your future, choosing a  major and starting with a clean slate, starting a new chapter in a new environment with people who don't know your name was enticing. My future was bright.

As I walked into the stark white halls of the brand new school building I knew that I wasn't going to taste any of that freedom. The universe wanted me to be unhappy, take all my aspirations and dreams from me and throw them away. I looked all  the new classmates I met straight in the eyes with the deepest poison knowing that I would be taken away from this paradise and thrown into the halls of a school in a small farmer town in New York state. My new sense of adulthood was taken away from me.

I made it my goal to show distaste to everything and everyone in my own personal hell. I sat at lunch brooding over the stupidity of my new acquired friends and refused to take any sympathy from my parents. I glared at my room's ceiling blasting heavy metal music, the only thing able to feed my hatred. There was no mercy spared for even a blade of grass in the new town I was stuck in.

After living in New Paltz for almost three years I can now fully appreciate smiling at the people in my life. After being left with just my raw being, my friends, dreams, and goals left in the abyss of New Jersey, it became clear the person I was and how not content I was with myself. Days and nights spent recollecting my memories and befriending the lyrics coming from my ear buds became my source for renewal. I took advantage of the clean slate I was presented with.

Getting the ability to start my life over,write a different story for myself, create a new person gave my all the necessities to become an adult.  Now on my eighteenth birthday I can truly call myself an adult, not because I can buy cigarettes or lottery tickets but because I am truly proud of the person I chose to be.