Up, Up and Away, Man, I'll Come Down in a Couple of Days http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-_IOeBgwrI

    For whatever reason, disabling Jenny's independence is practiced by everyone so well it must be on every street corner the way Missing Dog! posters are. After my last exam, (might I add: the most dreaded) I have a break of five days. I decided it best not to sit around Raleigh for those days, just reading and resigned from the social scene then complaining about it later as I knew I would. So I called my grandmother and decided to make flight reservations for a four day trip to Glastonbury, CT. My grandparents have lived here for fifty some years and love when we come visit, thus leading me to this moment in time.

   I sit comfortably on a bed in a room that looks like it was designed by a decorator with a fetish for awkward shots of my mother's family and crappy African accessories. Oh, and since when was there a Rule of Design that you can't employ anything from the 21st century in decorating? 

    Anyway, let's examine how everyone has managed to dangle my independence over my head today. After my exam, I was forced to sit patiently, not waiting for anyone at all to finish their exam, considering I was second to last. (Remind me what I was waiting for again?) Then, my mother woke me up from my nap (the best part of my day) saying I needed to pack. Hello, I'm always more prepared than you...why don't you go get ready instead of nagging me? After those aggravating tidbits, it only sloped downward. At the airport, I was forced ("by law") to have my dad accompany me through security and down to the gate where I met a blonde-haired woman in a navy skirt and matching blazer who might as well have asked if I wanted to hold her hand while she held my sippy cup. I got handed on just as track-stars hand off their batons. 

    Following Airplane Barbie was the flight attendant. She placed me promptly on aisle 1, where no one else was seated so I could be the first person that came into vision when she wanted to go anywhere on the plane. Might I add that she only checked up on me/ told me (once again, "by law") everything that is common knowledge about riding a plane every spare second she had. Oh, really, I thought the seat belt was decoration and if the air mask drops I was supposed to play with it like cats play with yarn. The flight attendant looked like Mother Teresa compared to this next woman though. Measuring at 4'11 (with heels), she was a lot of angry for a little woman ("I have four other flights to be watching! I can't find your luggage - that's your job!"). I'd be the responsible person I am if I didn't have to be accompanied by an airport worker at all times...but thanks for the suggestion (not like it's the first time I'd thought of it either). A series more of discontented Delta servicemen/women passed me along. I was the secret that is told from one person to the next in the game of Telephone, each time being viewed and treated differently than the last person I had been with.

    The train of airport employees who handled me ended with a woman who eased the stress of the trip. She didn't seem particularly real, just saying "aww" after things I said, but at least she tried. Whether she was genuine or not, I'm not sure, but I'm sure she tried to be nice and relate to me. After minutes of sitting with her, talking to a woman I'll probably never see again, my grandfather appeared and I was relieved.....kind of. Within the first evening of being here, limitations are already set. 1) No eyebrow plucking. 2) We only wash our faces with soap and since we didn't pay for you to have checked luggage (thus nothing over 3oz that's liquid, no face wash), you have to use the hand soap or nothing. 3) You can only use your towel. 4)The heat does not exceed 50 on the second floor (where I am stationed) because we don't heat it. 5) Lastly, you're inclined to go wherever I go (oh, that makes perfect sense since I'm 9 years old and in the stage where I break everything and hide it under the coffee table).

    Though I may sound like I am harboring too much angst, it's probably cause I am. I was going to give you a reason but my fingers started typing that before I could stop them. I'll admit that I'm angry. I may only be 14, but then again I am 14. I need some freedom. I would have much more liked to take a train to visit my aunt, but that wasn't suitable in my mom's opinion. I would have liked to take a plane to Egypt and hitch-hike my way through another continent (which I recognize as totally unrealistic, but yet a pipe dream I grasp for dear life). 

    Instead, I am trapped in a 14 year old's life and body, where my feet don't quite fit these shoes and my arms are popping out of my jacket limbs. I am contained in a figure that has zits and stretch-marks because it's not done growing. And there's no way out of this frame. So I'm left to fade into nothing, my independence and all else robbed from right under my nose. I'm left to hide within this carcass, to be deadened down to the roots.