I constantly convince myself that I am free from the first-world problems that others my age are plagued by, but in reality, a soap opera is continuously spinning around me—I am in the center of the tornado, not in the eye of a hurricane.
Melodramatics cloak me in a haze as I navigate a stage that everyone experiences. Everyone else is jogging around the hurdles, but for some reason, I find myself leaping over each of them, knocking each one to the ground as I can rarely make a clear jump. I can’t lift my back foot high enough.
I isolate myself and listen to tracks for tragedies—my tragedies that would only be appropriate as a mere frown. I can’t find sleep or the will to turn off my alarm for the same reasons; each shameful memory forces my head to sink into my pillow like a ball of lead into the lowest of lows.
And then there are the highs. The highs so skybound that I am constantly rocketing after them. My hours are filled with roaring laughter for jokes that weren’t funny and neglect of anything of importance. We chase down people who don’t even pay mind to us, and I find myself thinking of others whom I’ve convinced myself reciprocate my behavior.
I’m coming home well past my curfew with a stupid smile plastered across my face; I could have gone on to run over to the next house and joined their party with no limits. I’m hugging girls I don’t know and high-fiving boys I’ve just met; I take on dares that I wouldn’t fathom doing alone.
It’s a teenage soap opera, and my issues are trivial—I’m not nearly mature enough for career struggles and economic tribulations. My life is ripping along yet stagnant in all the wrong places—stagnant but never neutral.
Despite the gaudy and frankly ridiculous nature of soap operas, there is something that brings me comfort: nothing is of any consequence in a soap opera. Teenagers are as flippant as the fluctuating days that pass, and I am no different, but I can bask in the relief that it is only a natural part of the swirling funnel.
Yet, I cannot help but wish the undulating highs were not so high and the lows were not so low. I occasionally desire a lazy river—a state of simple content. However, I’m in a teenage soap opera, and I have a role to upkeep.
