The Long and Short of it...

I have a story to share with you.

Once upon a time there was a little girl. She was brought into this world by two teenagers who by society's standards were not ready for a child in the slightest. Her mother was 19 and had only just gotten out of high school, while her father never graduated. She was born in a small town in the south but didn't live there much longer. Her parents moved back to their home town. Her mother took a job at the local mall while her father worked as a mechanic. The little girl was often left with her grandparents while her parents were away.

When she was about 2 years old the little girl was joined by a little sister. Not long after the trouble started. The little girl's parents fought a lot. Although she was so young she still hears the
muffled sounds of things breaking and yelling and screams in her dreams. The little girl's parents soon divorced and the little girl and her sister were entrusted to their mother while they saw their father every other weekend, at least that is what it says on the court papers.

As the years past the little girl grew up in the small little town with her mother and sister. Her mother remarried and soon there was a little brother added to the group. The little girl grew up living in fantasy, she poured over old movies like Star Wars and Indiana Jones and thousands of cartoons. She became obsessed with the stories of great heroes and heroines to the point that she wanted to know more. She wanted to know how the stories she watched were made. She wanted to know more. To make up for the often lack of continuations that a good movie often had the little girl created her own versions at night. She often stayed up well past her bed time
pretending, always including herself in the far off lands because she wanted to escape from the harshness of her own story.

The little girl felt as if her life was a constant living hell, looking back on it she still feels that way. Her father treated her like crap, she often pretended she was Cinderella, pretending her real father had died and left her with a mean new step father. She never told anyone how she felt and what really went on because she was scared. She felt alone and she wanted her prince to come and save her. She wished she could run away from the place on the weekends and go home to where she felt safe, but her mother persuaded her to stay for the sake of her younger sister. This made the little girl angry and often upset with her mother, because she felt like she didn't matter to either of her parents. She felt like her sister was the princess in her parents, eyes while the little girl was nothing but a maid.

She grew up still. She went to high school and graduated, not top of her class but who needs icky general classes when your passion is an art form that no one can really teach you. Her obsession with stories evolved into an obsession with movie making and she has been accepted into a top film making school where she will go off to in the fall. She is working hard to move past the scares and the pain that her child hood holds. She once felt alone, and some days she still does, but she wants her life to be spectacular and better than either of her parents would have dreamed up for her. She has something to prove. That little girl isn't worthless, she wasn't a mistake, and she isn't who she was thought to be.

That little girl is me.