#i think all the stress and exhaustion is finally sinking in. also my counselor just had an extremely sudden death in his family and can’t

[pepprs]

woke up and immediately started crying lol

[lubdubsworld]

Better Man.

~~~~~~~~~~~~`Just to see you smile, I’d do anything. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Taehyung x Oc

Rated 18 +

Post Divorce, Getting Back Together, Second chances, Angst.

Chapter 1    Chapter 2   Chapter 3   Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Do you ever truly know what someone is feeling?

You could spend decades , breathing the same air, hands held , your fingers brushing ....connected physically and even mentally but a person’s emotions, they’re hidden away. 

You only ever know what they’re willing to show .

And yet, 

all of us build relationships, convinced that we know exactly what the other person will feel when we act a certain way. Buying her flowers will make happy....visiting him at work will take away that little bit of stress.

But sometimes, what we think someone feels, may not be what they truly feel.

And that’s when your actions, well intended actions..... end up with disastrous consequences. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So....last night...” Jungkook’s teasing voice did nothing to ease the pounding in my head.

“I do believe you promised not to tease me about it if I drank two glasses of water, which I did by the way.” I told him firmly, trying to bring the words on my planner into focus as i squinted. Three meeting. Each two hours long. 

kill me now. 

“I wanted to ask HR to give you the day off but you have quite a schedule today. “ He said casually,  leaning over me to peer into the planner . I glanced at his wrist resting on the table, the expensive rolex showing that it was a little past 9. 

“ We’re planning out the Christmas campaign first and I have a meeting with Taehyung’s team in the afternoon so we can go over the contract see if they have any requirements and then the social media team in the evening at four to discuss promos and revamping the website.” I glanced up at him. 

He gave me a smile before casually leaning down, lightly gripping my chin and tilting my face up. I felt the brush of his lips against mine, fleeting and gentle. 

‘You’re beautiful.” He smiled. 

I blinked.

And then took a deep breath.

“Your wife...” I said softly. “ I saw her today.” 

Jungkook went completely still at that. 

“She was waiting in the lobby on my way up. I didn’t know who you were married to and I was a little shocked and also little upset because....” I glanced at him. “ She was my best friend in college. “

Jungkook swore. 

“Fuck.. I told her to stay the fuck away from my company. Did she say something to you?” 

i shook my head.

“I didn’t greet her because I wasn’t sure if she remembered me. And I wasn’t sure if i was remembering her right. i didn’t know she was your wife till i heard someone mention it in the elevator on my way up. Did you know that she and i knew each other?” 

Jungkook looked just a little guilty.

“When you first joined the company, she saw your resume on my cvomputer. told me a lot about you. She remembers you. Fondly. She wanted to come meet you but...things happened.  “ He shrugged.

Things like infidelity and divorces . 

“Ahh...” I smiled. “ Tell me i wasn’t another way to get back at your ex wife, Jeon Jungkook ssi...” 

He made a noise of protest.

“no... No of course not Christ...it’s just...I’ll admit she made me curious about you. She spoke of you being spontaneous and fun and wild and I’d seen you as this demure, elegant woman in the office. i was curious. I wanted to know which one was the real you. “

“Were you curious before she cheated....or after?”

“ Jang Mi...this isn’t what it looks like .. I’m done with her. She fucked my best buddy and ruined my fucking life...” He sounded pained. 

I frowned. 

“It’s hard to believe she would do something like that. The Aera i remember had a very strong moral compass.” 

“Yeah well, apparently, you can live whole entire lives with someone and never really know the person. Listen, do we really have to talk about my ex wife?” He asked, eyes shining with discomfort. 

I shrugged.

“I’m not fond of drama. I won’t tangle myself in a relationship that risks hurting a lot of people Jungkook. That’s just not the kind of person I am. I’m sorry.” 

He made a noise of impatience, shaking his head. 

“We won’t be hurting anyone... We have fun together. We like each other. We’re attracted to each other...that’s all that matters....” He said sharply.

“ If we were in our twenties , without kids ....maybe. But that's not how it is now. I have a son, you have a daughter and I think I’m not completely over my marriage yet.” I said softly. 

He froze.

“And i don’t think you’re completely over your wife either.” I smiled.

He glared at me. 

“Ex-wife.” He snarled.

“She makes you feel things, Jungkook. You need to sort that out before you start something new with someone else. I’m only saying this because we’re old enough not to 

He growled and punched the desk. 

“God, how can she keep ruining my life even when she’s out of it.” He muttered, stepping away from me and moving to the door. 

I watched him storm out of my office and bit my lip. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By the time evening rolled around, I was exhausted. But the day had been productive and I was happy because the contract had been finalized, the theme had been decided and we’d also spent an amazing three hours redesigning the website. Although it wasn’t in my job description I had studied web design in college and the creative department always welcomed my inputs. 

“You’re in a good mood...” Taehyung’s voice was a complete surprise and I turned to him, shocked. He was dressed in a black t shirt and blue jeans and sneakers and looked a whole decade younger. 

I felt affection rise up my throat so fast I nearly choked. 

“What are you doing here?”

“My agent told me you guys were incredibly cooperative today. She also told me you were quite possibly the loveliest woman she’s ever met and that I’m an idiot to have let you go.” He smiled. 

I laughed, shaking my head and my gaze shifted to the small bunch of tiger lilies in his hand. 

I felt warmth bloom in my chest. 

“You remembered.” I said softly, pleased. 

“Thirteen years since our first date.  The lily to my tiger. ” He held the flowers to me and I grinned, pressing the flowers to my chest. 

“Man I feel old.” I muttered.

“You are old.” Tae grinned and i grimaced, before tossing him a glare. . 

“You’re supposed to say I still look as beautiful as i did thirteen years ago.” I said. 

“But you don.t” He grinned impishly. “ You look a billion times  more  beautiful.” 

I felt the atmosphere shift, the air charged with something dangerous and i looked away. Usually, this was when I would laugh and throw my arms around him. Pull him close and press my lips against his , slip my fingers into his t shirt and trace the skin of his back. Feel his hands on my waist as he lifted me up to twirl me around and kiss me just like that. 

How often had we kissed that way? Thirteen years is a long time to count the number of kisses we’d shared. 

We both stayed quiet, looking anywhere but at each other.

“I...there’s a reason I came.” He said finally.

I glanced at him.

“Oh?”

“The lawyer. Ms. Lee she ... recommended a relationship counselor”

I blinked, my breath catching in my throat. 

“Taehyung we’re-”

“Just hear me out. Its not mandatory and it won’t affect the divorce in anyway. its just something the court offers all couples going through a divorce and we’re free to refuse it. “

“Did you?” I asked. 

“Did I what?”

“Refuse it. Did you tell her no?” 

He stared at me. 

“No.” He said finally.

I exhaled sharply.

“Wow.” I whispered, feeling jittery and unbalanced. He sighed and came closer, reaching out to lightly grip my wrists. I let him tug me closer into a hug and held him tight, my heart pounding with anxiety.

“Mia.... I just... I’m not saying we should try to fix this.... relationship.” He said softly, eyes gentle and pleading, “  I just think this whole thing has taken a toll on both of us and maybe we can heal better if we get the help of a professional. Come out of this with closure. Instead of battling guilt and regrets everyday. Just ....it could help us move on. Don’t you think?”

You could never really tell what the other person is feeling. 

I couldn’t tell what Taehyung was feeling right now? 

Hope ?

Hope that we would fix our marriage....

or maybe hope that he would finally move on from me.. Maybe this whole thing was his final attempt to end things with me for good. So he could walk out of my life forever without any lingering guilt or regret. 

I would never know. 

I clung to him harder and somehow the pain of the entire two years we’d been apart, rammed into me at once. 

I choked on a sob. Breathing became difficult and I felt myself gasping for air. 

“Mia?” Taehyung’s panicked voice was the last sane thought that registered. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay? I can stay the night if you want. I’ll sleep in the spare bedroom . ” Taehyung whispered,  seated on the warm fluffy blanket that he’d managed to dig out of the closet in the spare bedroom. i was already tucked into the bed, fingers clutching the satin lined edges . 

i shook my head.

“I know how much you need your gazillion pillows. Go on... I’ll be fine.”

“i feel terrible. i pushed you into a panic attack.”

I waved off the guilty words. 

“You didn’t . i was already a little frayed and i guess i haven’t really been processing all the stuff between us the way i should have. i just got a little overwhelmed.” 

A panic attack. At the age of 32. The last time i had one I was twenty four. I wanted to crawl into the bed and never resurface. 

Taehyung’s gentle fingers , stroking my cheek brought me out of my own head. 

“I was so scared.” He said softly and my heart ached.

“I’m sorry i scared you.” I said apologetically, gripping his wrists lightly and stroking the skin there with my thumb. 

“I really want to stay. i don’t think I’ll be able to sleep if I go home right now.” He whispered. 

I bit my lips. 

“Okay... but... You need to hug something. To sleep. “ 

He grinned at that. 

“I’m old enough to survive one night without a pillow, Mia .” he chuckled. 

I flushed, sinking deeper into the covers.

“Okay.” 

“You don’t have to worry about the counselor thing. I’ll tell Lee we don’t want to do any-”

“No!!” I said quickly, a lot  louder than I’d intended. 

Taehyung blinked.

“I just... I realized that I haven’t been dealing with any of this...the right way. I’m so confused and disoriented all the time and I .. I don’t mind getting some help. To sort things out. Just for myself you know...without the pressure of trying to fix...well us.” I finished .

Taehyung gave me a wide smile before bending down and kissing my forehead.

“ Okay, Mia mine. Sleep well, and I’ll see you in the morning.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

[apathetic-revenant]

yesterday I called the psychiatric clinic where I made an appointment a couple of months ago. at the time they had told me that the waiting list period was 2-4 months, and I wanted to know what it was now.

I’m not sure if they didn’t understand that I was wanting to know specifically where my appointment was on the list, or if they just weren’t going to tell me that, but either way all they would say was that their waiting period is 4-6 months.

so that was encouraging.

my dad sent me the sites for a couple of other clinics to try applying to instead and I keep looking at them but I haven’t done anything yet.

I have it good, really. I’m living with my parents right now and they’re very supportive. they’re trying to help me get better and they’ve made it clear that I can stay here as long as I need. I’m not in any danger. I don’t have any emergency medical issues. I don’t have crippling debt. I don’t have a job right now, but that’s no one’s fault but mine. I know there are people doing so much worse than me. I see their stories every day. people who are still going out and doing things and getting by under horrible circumstances and here I am, doing nothing. not even trying. 

really, the only problem I have is me. 

when I was in school I grew to hate the question of “what are you going to do after you graduate?” so much that I banned all mention of it from my graduation party. now I get the upgraded question, “so what are you doing now?” and I hate it even more.

every time a well-meaning family member asks me that I think, nothing. I am doing nothing. I am floating. I am drifting in space.

my brother came home to visit over the Fourth of July weekend. he had a car that he wanted to bring home so my dad and I went out in my grandfather’s truck to help tow it back. 

on the ride home he asked me the question. 

I mentioned that I had made a psychiatric appointment and that I was sort of waiting on that. 

he gave me advice. about moving forward and getting your name out there. about how things will probably suck for a while because when you send out lots of resumes they’ll almost all get rejected but things will improve. you just gotta push forward a little bit at a time. it’s good that you have that appointment but you shouldn’t just wait for your situation to get better. you always think the next thing will be better, he says, but when it comes along there will be problems with that too. keep pushing forward but don’t place all your hope on any one thing to turn everything around.

uh huh, I said.

it was good advice. 

then we got distracted by a goat and he went on to give me advice about how to survive the zombie apocalypse. he was very heavily caffeinated at the time. 

I couldn’t figure out how to explain that waiting for this appointment felt like waiting for a live preserver. like I was treading water in the middle of the ocean and it was all I could do to stay afloat and someone had said, you cannot wait to be rescued. you have to swim to shore by yourself.

you’ll be alright, my brother said. you did well in school. 

and so I did. I made it on the dean’s list almost every semester, my professors usually liked me, I hardly ever missed class, I could count on one hand the amount of assignments that I had botched or missed in my entire time in school. I graduated magna cum laude and immediately received a great deal of ribbing about how my family had to find out from the program because I didn’t tell them. I had to repeat several times that I also had to find out from the program because they didn’t tell me ahead of time either.

I did not say that it was nice and all but I didn’t really care about it that much. I was tired and happy that it was over and that I could take the stupid robe off and go eat some cookies now and anyway you can’t say things like that, really. 

I did well in school and I hated it. I was exhausted and miserable and I stressed myself sick all the time. I wanted to be able to miss class when I felt bad, or to bullshit on lesser assignments instead of panicking over them. I couldn’t. the anxiety was always pushing me forward, threatening me with the consequences of failure. 

my first semester I went to see a college counselor. I said that I had a lot of anxiety.

“I notice you don’t make eye contact,” the first one said, and suggested a tentative diagnoses of PDD-NOS. I asked to see another counselor.

I saw the next one for the rest of the semester. it was difficult to fit the sessions in around class and work and productions and convocations and everything else. the counselor was nice, but I found that I was not looking forward to seeing her. it involved talking, something I have never been much good at. 

she told me early on that she didn’t believe in labels. “I don’t want to put you in a box,” she said. “Everyone is different. I want to focus on your situation, not on a diagnosis and a list of symptoms.” 

I nodded and I didn’t argue because she was, after all, the counselor, and probably right, even if it made my heart sink because goddamn did I want a label. I wanted a box. I wanted to say this is what I have, this is what’s wrong with me. I was very, very tired of saying this is just the way I am. 

in our last session she told me that her conclusion was that I was probably somewhere on the autism spectrum. I did not really feel like that was true, but even if it was I wondered why everyone seemed interested in giving me a very vague diagnosis of something autistic but resisted putting any labels on the anxiety I had very explicitly told them I had. 

I never resumed the sessions the next semester. I kept on doing well in school. college offered lots of opportunities: clubs and honor societies and extracurricular work and field trips and conferences and social events and networking opportunities. all kinds of ways to build up your future, plan for life after graduation. 

I couldn’t care about my future.I knew that I should but I couldn’t. I did the things that were right in front of me, the things that I had to do, and I didn’t have anything left. I didn’t feel enthusiastic or excited about anything.

but after all, how bad could things be, if I was doing so well?

things have never been truly dire. I have never been at risk of self-harm. I get up every morning and I do some things and I brush my teeth and shower every day. I’m not sure how much of it is driven by anxiety and guilt over not doing the things, but I do them. things were never so bad in college that anyone saw cause for alarm. things are not so bad now that I cannot wait two, four, six months in abeyance. 

you can’t wait too long, my brother said. if you spend too long out of college not doing anything, people will notice. they won’t want to hire you so much. 

it has been seven months now since I graduated. I think a lot about those old stories about people getting trapped in the faerie otherworld. how time seems to stand still, one moment stretching out forever like a dream, but when they finally return to the real world it has been centuries and centuries. 

lately life feels like floating. like anti-gravity, drifting through endless space; like swimming against a current, moving with all my might but going nowhere. things don’t work and I don’t know why. books pile up unread, projects rot, emails go unanswered and there’s no reason for any of it. things just don’t happen. 

I look at these appointment forms and I think, this isn’t going to work. they are going to tell me that there is really nothing wrong with me. that there is something wrong with me but they’re not going to say what it is because they don’t want to put me in a box. that there is something wrong with me but it’s not the thing I think is wrong, it’s not the anxiety or depression it’s something else they think is more interesting. that there is something wrong with me but there’s really not much they can do about it. that things can’t be too bad if I did so well in school, if there are no emergencies now, if I am moving from day to day. 

that I will sit in someone’s office feeling like I did sitting in the car with my brother, trying to explain why I have done nothing with my life for seven months, but being unable to get the words right, and they will shake their head and send me away. 

I wish I had not done well in school. I wish I had failed, because I am failing now, failing at the things I want to do, failing at doing the things I am expected to do, failing at finding any meaning in anything, failing to be happy. but it’s unbelievable, even to me. it makes no sense. the fault must be mine, somewhere, but I can’t find it. 

[brokenbluewife-blog]

Fragile

And this is where the bad comes out.  I haven’t really talked about this with my husband, friends, my counselor, or even my doctor.  It’s my lowest of lows, and I am ashamed in a way, embarrassed.  Several months ago, after the fatigue and exhaustion started to set in, I began experiencing uncontrollable thoughts.  These thoughts would just come out of nowhere, hit me suddenly.  And by thoughts, I mean images of me going to the bedroom and grabbing a gun to end things...or me in the bathtub with a razor.  While fleeting in nature, it was still a bit disconcerting and scary.  What if it got to the point that these thoughts weren’t fleeting...or if one day I gave in to one of these thoughts in a irrational fit of sadness or anger?  Most days I had my husband at home, I didn’t worry as much on those days about it.  And I did as much as I could to give myself a break and relax on the days he was home, I was much more comforted and much less stressed with him home.  

As time went on, I started to notice a trend.  I only had those thoughts when I was at the extremes of exhaustion, when my body literally ached with fatigue.  I knew I needed some help...but how do you ask?  

Then it happened.  Kevin had developed yet another small bowel obstruction (it was his second of three in the last several months).  I took him to the hospital on a Tuesday after driving out to drop my kids off at my parent’s house.  We sat in the ER for hours.  The whole time he was retching in pain, it’s tough to watch someone you love so much experience such suffering, and to feel so helpless to relieve that pain.  FINALLY we were taken back for evaluation just past midnight and they were planning to do a CT scan of his abdomen again.     1:45 rolled around and I couldn’t take it any longer, I had to go home.  I didn’t know if he’d be admitted or sent home, but if they didn’t keep him a good friend promised she’d pick him up and bring him home.  You may think I was a bad wife for leaving, but I had work the next morning with a full schedule of patients (I work as a nurse practitioner and for some reason your patients don’t like to be re-scheduled last minute).  Plus I was running low on PTO.  With him being out of work and unable to pull off duty jobs, we needed a steady source of income.  Fast forward to Wednesday after working on 3-4 hours of sleep, I visit my husband in the hospital for a while and then drive to my parents to get my children....only to have to leave immediately to drive them home, which was another 45 minutes.  As I drove home, I kept running through everything that my drained self still had to do before sleep.  Get the kids to bed.  Pack their lunches. Shower.  Go to sleep.  Get kids ready for school.  It’s funny how simple that all seems right now, but at that point, on that night, it was too tall a mountain to climb.  So I broke down.  I was crying hysterically, trembling as I drove.  Hoping to get pulled over by a police officer so someone would see the terrible state I was in.  And then it hit me, the uncontrollable thoughts came rolling in.  I could just end it all that night and I wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore. It took me a little bit to realize what my mind had wandered to.  Then I became legitimately scared.  I knew there were items in my house that I could use to carry out those thoughts, and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to control those urges if I went home alone.   I was at a point where I didn’t trust myself. So what did I do?  I called a friend.  But not just any friend.  I called a friend that I knew would come straight over, no questions asked and be there for me, sleep over if she had to.  She answered, and what did she do?  She came over and stayed as long as I needed her to.

I remember getting home and putting the kids to bed that night.  Then I started working on the lunches.  She probably showed up within 5 minutes of my getting home.  She saw me shaking as I was trying to prep all the lunches, then she had me stop.  “Just tell me what you need me to do, I will finish the lunches.  You get a glass of wine and go take a warm bath and relax for a while.”  That was the advice I needed, and I obeyed.  When I came out, the lunches were packed and the kitchen sink was empty.  She cleaned our dishes and the kitchen counters.  It no longer smelled like the 2 day old brussel sprouts that I had to throw in the sink when I had to stop what I was doing and rush my husband to the hospital just the day before.  The world was in order again, as was my mind.  But she stayed and talked to me for the next two hours.  She let me vent about everything.  From my anger and frustration, to relationship problems Kevin and I were having, to depression and fear.  I got it all out that night and it helped me feel so much better, so relieved to  spew out all of those oppressive emotions. I felt like a weight was lifted.  I’ll never be able to repay her, and I will never forget the kindness she showed me that night.  I am forever thankful to have the friends and support that I do, I am indeed blessed.

That night was a turning point for me.  I realized that I was a bit more depressed that I initially thought.  So I scheduled an appointment with my doctor and we discussed options.  Enter Prozac.  I started this medication several weeks ago and have noticed that I don’t have any uncontrolled thoughts anymore, and my overall anxiety has improved.  I don’t get overwhelmed or feel myself on the verge of crying when I take my kids to school in the morning anymore.  I also spoke more with my counselor and had quite the emotional visit, but sometimes you need to just open up and let it all out.  It’s hard to let people see you’re vulnerable, but in this case it was necessary.  

So what’s the point of this entry?  To empower you to seek help.  You are not alone, even if you feel like you’re on a desolate island surrounded by roaring seas of sorrow and despair.  There is a way out.  It’s not easy, it’s probably one of the hardest things you’ll have to do.  But it is worth it.  Take control back over your life and live again.  

[mayoperry-blog]

That Backwards Hat

This is a small personal essay I wrote about one of my most profound moments in my life. I was only 16 when this happened, and it changed my life. It changed how I viewed the world, others, myself, and it’s the moment I truly realized the impact one can have on someone else. 

It had been a long week. A week filled with tears, scrapes and bruises, and far too many reprimanding talks for the amount of girls in the cabin. For two years now, I’ve worked at a week-long, sleep-away summer camp as a counselor. Each session is the most grueling, emotional, hard-hitting, amazing experience of my life. Each week that I spend in those conjoined cabins, two weeks in the summer and one long weekend in the winter, my life is changed. This past summer, however, I realized something that I never thought I would experience, especially not at the ripe, young age of 16. 

Every morning at camp, we have to wake up around 7:30 to make it down to breakfast in time. As a teenager, I can barely drag myself out of bed in a timely fashion, forget rallying eight pre-pubescent girls changing their outfits three times before deciding on the first outfit they tried on, fighting over who gets to hold who’s hand on the walk, all while collecting the daily necessities: sunscreen, band aids, spare jackets and the occasional security stuffed animal. The simple quarter mile hike down to the dining hall can be easily mistaken as a three day trek. Keeping track of kids trying to run ahead, pulling girls off of slippery rocks even though they “need to show you their newest gymnastic trick”, chasing down whichever giggling child grabbed my hat and snatching it back before they put on their own head. By the time we actually settle in for breakfast, every counselor is exhausted, and the kids are completely energized. On this one particular morning, no one was in a good mood. Halfway through the week, everything deflates. Patience gets shorter, the tension between co-counselors is more obvious than a chin zit the night before an actor’s debut performance. The entire cabin, the eight girls, my three co-counselors, and I, had been through enough. We woke up late, scrambling out of bed not long after the alarm had gone off. Everything that went wrong, could have. We couldn’t find a favorite jacket, someone had a tummy ache, another refused to put on her pants, the toothpaste was all gone, smeared across the sink counter rather than the toothbrushes it was intended for. The counselors decided to split the group in half, with the six already dressed girls getting a head start down to breakfast, while the remaining two girls and I stayed back until the campers deemed themselves “presentable for Benny in the B7 cabin”. The three of us finally made it out of the door, and began down the hill to the road leading to the dining hall. Up ahead, we could see the rest of our cabin as they met up with another group of girls also heading to breakfast. The camper on my left, Sarah, took off before my hoarse voice could instruct otherwise, barely making it down the hill without face planting before she caught up with her friends. Then it was down to two. The remaining camper, Jenny, held tight to me as she rambled on about her favorite foods and how she hoped breakfast would be pancakes. I selfishly tuned out her voice as I ran through the days schedule silently while trying to locate a desperately needed stray can of RedBull from the depths of my backpack.

Suddenly, I was jerked back by my hand as Jenny stopped in her tracks, gasping. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “We need to meet up with the rest of your friends.” “We can’t!” She protested. “Why not?” A little agitated, I lightly tugged her arm, but she stayed firm. “I forgot something in the cabin. We need to get it.” The fuse to my mental bomb shortened with every word. I could feel my fingernails digging into the palms of my hands, and to this day I’m surprised I didn’t draw blood. “Go get it!” Through clenched teeth, I used my patient, overenthusiastic voice as Jenny skipped back up the hill, clearly not detecting my irritation. I impatiently popped the tab on my lukewarm blue and silver can as Jenny came back down the hill, her smile ever present while mine had long gone. She skidded to a stop and beamed up at me, showing off her toothy smile that was missing a couple of teeth. A blindingly bright, neon pink trucker hat sat atop her head.

“I got my hat. Now we can go.” Jenny stated, matter-of-factly. We ambled down the hill, taking our time. I knew it was past the point of making it to breakfast on time, and decided to ease up on myself before I short-circuited due to stress. We stayed silent for a while, Jenny and I. She seemed content with humming to herself, and I welcomed the moment of peace before I had to deal with the rest of the seven preteens who had left us behind. “You know how I went and got my hat?” Jenny asked. I nodded. “I decided to start wearing hats now.” I nodded again. “You wanna know why?” “Why?” I responded, deciding to indulge my camper. “Because you wear hats.” She stated simply. “You wear a hat now, because I wear a hat?” I confirmed. “Yep. We can be twins.” She smiled. I squeezed her hand in agreement. We walked quietly for a few hundred yards before Jenny spoke up again, this time more timid than before.

“I wear my hat, because you wear a hat. And because I want to be like you.” I stopped in my tracks for just a beat before continuing, not wanting to let her know that her confession had struck me. At first, I was confused about why she wanted to be like me, why she chose to wear her hat the way I wore mine. Sun protection? I wear a hat for no other reason than I like the feel of it pressed against my forehead. Some people have a favorite necklace or a lucky pair of shoes, I wear my hat.

We made it down to breakfast, and that morning I ate quietly. Jenny’s declaration played in my head as I filled my stomach with hard boiled eggs and another classic RedBull. Right as the breakfast bell sounded, I realized what Jenny had really said. She looked up to me. I realized that by trying to dress how I dress, she tried to emulate me. When people look up to a someone, they wear the brands that the person wears or endorses, listen to the music the person listens to. Jenny saw something in me, something that she wanted to be.

Before that day, I had no idea the impact that I had on people. Parents had told me that “I was a unique kid” or that “I had something special” but I think that’s because parents have to say that to prove that they can be civil to children other than their own. I didn’t realize that I was someone worth following, worth looking up to.

For the rest of the week, I started to notice little things that Jenny would do to match me. If I crossed my arms, hers somehow twisted themselves into the exact same position seconds later. The colors I used on my lanyard somehow ended up in hers in the exact same order. Never before had I realized how, by just being themselves, one person could touch someone else. I was unaware of how by just being the one person who encourages a kid to take a chance they were scared to take, by applauding them for the small, trivial victories, one could give that child the support that they may not have ever had before. I have so many role models that I look up to. Soccer stars, celebrities, my ninth grade english teacher. I never thought that I would be in that position of wonder for someone else. I never thought someone would want to wear their hat the way I did, because I did. In one week, I influenced the life of a girl who needed someone to look up to, and that nine-year-old girl opened my eyes to the impact that one can have on anything by just being supportive and open-minded, by being themselves.