Following her own instructions

She’s pretty, always has been, but never seen as breathtaking. She’s athletic, a Varsity level teammate even, but her name has never been found in the starting lineup. And she has always been good, but not great, certainly never the best. She has blended within every crowd and every room she has stood in, and she knows this has partly been her fault. Because she has followed the crowds, and matched the people around her. She has followed every instruction and never broken a rule, for fear of finally becoming the girl who is noticed, for fear of the pressure of that starting lineup position, for fear of being obviously great at anything at all. But this weekend, this all changed.

The boy she has always loved chose the girl who took a chance and revealed her feelings for him. Her friend, who she thought of as her closest friend, had never known her feeling for this same boy, because their friendship was one-sided. She followed her, she did what she was told, she was the sidekick and the backup, the person who was there to make her look good and less alone. Her team had lost, when a goal was missed she knew she could have scored. But her coach always seemed to forget she still sat on the bench, and she’d been told to be polite, and she’d been instructed to be quiet, a supportive player, who still cheered from the bench even when she ached to play. And, worst of all, her own family seems to be forgetting her presence. They take for granted her goodness. The idea of her skipping a chore, or breaking a habitually formed routine, has never once crossed their mind, and so on the day of her birth, when the morning rose and her mind told her she was now eighteen years old, she rolled over in bed, brushed her teeth for an exact two-minutes, brushed her hair and put the brush away again, got dressed in her modest outfit that even she would admit resembled the one she wore the day before, and as she quietly shut her bedroom door behind her to join the family in the kitchen, she waited for the words. But she heard nothing. 

They nodded their heads, offered a good morning, and it was clear they had forgotten her birthday. She watched them as they watched her, as she began putting the clean dishes from the dishwasher away in their appropriate spot, as she did each morning before. They left them there, expecting she would do them, for they had instructed her to do this same chore one time years ago and she has never once stopped. But then, she stopped, the dishes only half emptied. The missing sound of the clinking of dishes and the repetition of closing and opening of drawers and cabinets, made her family pause and look up, before they looked back down at their newspapers once again. 

She walked out the door, without asking permission. She found herself in the driver’s seat of her car, the key in the ignition, the car started and she turned the radio up a bit louder. Her actions were coming without thought, her seatbelt seemed to stretch around her and buckle itself, and she hardly noticed she’d made any movement, even as she pulled into reverse, swinging onto the road behind her. 

Her driving was more reckless than ever before, and her speed a bit higher, though nothing close to dangerous. She kept driving without any direction. For the first time in her life, she had no plans, and for the first time, she was on her own, not moving at the instruction of another. She could go wherever she wanted to go, though she didn’t know where that seemed to be. The road continued to travel beneath her, smoothly, the highway seeming to grant her a time of ease with no traffic around her. She sped up.

The crackling sound beneath her tires alerted her to the gravel she’d turned upon. A sharp-sounding release popped the seatbelt free and she jumped through the open door and on to her feet. A smile slid the right side of her lips up just a touch, as her feet stepped upon the beginning of the hiking trail before her. She walked some, jogged a bit, and even skipped a touch. Each step reminded her of everything she’d been told to do, instructed without thought of the meaning of her day today, to do. Empty the dishwasher. Go to practice, for the sport you no longer even enjoy. Pick up the groceries on your way home. Prep for dinner, slice the vegetables, mince the garlic, chop the herbs, and set the table too. She’d skipped it all.

Her muscles did not ache as she trekked this upward trail. The strict training schedule she’d been instructed to follow, and of course always had without fail, without a single day off, has kept her in shape for things like this. Her breaths came steady, nearly silent even, and her cheeks were not red. 

The top of the mountain at last arrived, presenting its spectacular view of the Green Mountain State. Vermont, her home, sometimes surprised her with its beauty. A few steps closer, and she was now at the edge, staring outwards into the trees, peeking down at the tower of rocky ledges she had just climbed, looking around her, at the people behind her. Their cheeks were red, and their breaths were loud. She smiled, for once, allowing herself to see herself for who she was; someone who was great. Her head fell backwards, the blue sky greeting her eyes. Her arms extended wide, and for the first time in all of her life, she allowed herself to be free. A tear of joy slipped from the corner of her eye as she opened her mouth wide and released the scream that had been building for years.

Someone behind her, in the last group remaining at the ledge, looked at her with a strange look before shaking his head and stepping back into the wooded trail. It was her alone at the top of this mountain. She sat down and crossed her legs. She’d been moving without thought today, her actions all unplanned, until now in this silence her thought came clear once more. She asked herself questions that she had never dared to ask.

Who am I?

Why don’t I like who I am?

Who do I really want to be?

How do I become her?

It was time to finally ask these questions, as once this year ended, she’d be free from the routine of highschool, and off to explore beyond the limits of this small New England state. But her parents had told her to stay close. They’d told her to go to college. They’d instructed her to continue playing soccer. They’d instructed all of it, directed who she would become, planned it all out. Yet, they hadn’t even remembered her birthday today. 

She didn’t know who she was, yet, because she had never dared to be her own. She didn’t like who she was now, because she’d never made a choice for herself. She didn’t know who she wanted to be, except for a few things. She knew she wanted to be brave, she knew she wanted to be fun, she knew she wanted to be free. She wanted to be her own person. Today, she had turned it all off and tuned it all out, and her subconscious had guided her here, to a rocky ledge looking out into the horizon, proving to her all of the possibilities and all of the places she had yet to go. All of the places she’d never been permitted to go. And so, she knew, the only way to become these things, to become who she’d always wanted to be, was to break all of the rules, to no longer follow anyone’s instructions, anyone’s instructions but her own.