Those Days

By: Ella Johnson

There are those days when you get home, and you smush your head into your pillow and scream as loud as you possibly can. To release your anger. To cry, even about the stupid things like boys and feeling like you don’t fit in. Everyone has those days. They make you want to lie in your bed forever, cursing the world and the people who make you feel like you don’t belong in it. I hate those days and the way they make me want to stop going. 

But then there are those other days when you get home and you hug your pillow tightly. But this time, it is because you are full of joy and you wish to release your happiness because God knows, this world needs more of it. Daydreaming about the boy or girl who finally noticed you. Thinking about the moment you were included in something, even if it was just for a few seconds. Recalling the time your friend said something so funny you peed your pants. Now, those moments keep me going.

Like that day. September 10, 2022. 195 days ago. One of the happiest days of my life. I still remember how the grass, which was wet from the rainstorm that morning, tickled my ankles as I watched the sun slowly melt into the ground leaving a splatter of reds, oranges, and pinks behind in the sky. 

I remember how my best friend, Sophia, sat down next to me, handing me a king size hershey bar.“You stole a whole bar?” I laughed, shifting my body so I was facing her. I took the chocolate in my hands and broke it open. I remember throwing a piece of chocolate in my mouth and waiting for the creamy sweetness to explode in my mouth. Mmm, so good, I had thought. Never in a million years could I ever get tired of that taste. 

I remember laughter and closing my eyes just as a breeze came, lifting my curly hair up behind me. It brang the aroma of smoke, campfire, and chocolate.

I remember opening my eyes and watching Sophia as she played with her glasses. “Sophia…” I’d begun to say. She had looked at me, waiting for me to continue. “You know those days that are so perfect you’re almost sad as the day is ending because you know you will never have a day as perfect as the one you just experienced?” 

“Yeah, of course,” Sophia had giggled, wrapping her arm around my shoulder. “I’m having a day like that today.” 

“Me too.” I’d buried my head into her hair and inhaled deeply. She smelled like the bath and body works perfume: At the Beach. 

And I remember her saying loudly: “Thank You for being such a great friend to me”  as if she was announcing it to the whole world. 

And I remember most of all grinning as a warm feeling flooded into my chest. The feeling I got on those days. The feeling that I was enough. The feeling that I had made someone happy, no matter how small the action was. Now, those moments keep me going.