When I was in seventh grade, I counted one hundred and twenty-eight reasons to smile. I kept them in a red leather bound journal, one small enough to fit in the back pocket of the faded denim jeans I had worn to a shred.

1. Summer vacation is starting (of course, only if that circumstance applies)
23. You have parents who love you and care about you, even if they don’t show it sometimes
64. Pizza
97. Days when you blast music into your eardrums, which may make you
deaf in the long run, it makes you feel ALIVE.
128. If you’re reading this: you’re breathing, you’re thinking, you’re feeling, you are awake, you are alive.

Of course then I was only twelve. I thought that I could eat six twinkies a day while staying skinny my whole life because my metabolism permitted it at the time, and I thought throwing on a pair of glasses without frames from a thrift shop would make me “vintage” or “hipster” or whatever. But then I gained thirty pounds the summer before sophomore year and my glasses broke. So I ate Weight Watchers microwavable muffins that taste like a shoe for breakfast and went to school “not vintage” or whatever.

Then I counted thirty-five actual reasons to smile; of course there are many more, but the other ones are more just smiling at your own idiocy, smiling at something that isn’t real or concrete. Sometimes I’m surprised I was able to make a list at all.

1. Someone you don’t like has the flu.
11. Someone you don’t like trips and falls in the hallway, and you watch as their books scatter across the floor; maybe you casually step on one (you apologize fakely afterwards)
19. Pizza
35. You’re not dead. Yet.

I showed my mom my updated list, and she frowned, saying I’m growing “cynical” and “kind of depressed” or whatever. I used to think my mom was perfect, too. I used to think that she was the most amazing woman in the world. Super; superwoman; supermom. But then she cheated on Dad and I found weed under her mattress, so I started realizing that my own mother was a human. That freaked me out a little bit, so that weekend I watched three and a half seasons of Full House without stopping and that made me feel better; at least temporarily.


By the winter of my junior year, my list got cut down to “thirty-two reasons to smile.” Breaking Bad ended, so “Breaking Bad sundays” was no longer a valid reason to smile. Neither was “playing fetch with Sammy” as my crazy a** neighbor flattened her to a pancake, courtesy of her new SUV. “I’m so sorry, Taylor, I’m so short I can barely see over the steering wheel. Maybe you should have an indoor dog, you know, so it like, lives.” Then she laughed. My dog dies and that b**** laughs.

And finally, “Pizza” got removed from my list. My mom decided we need to go on a gluten free diet. I would sneak it after school anyway, but then coincidentally my favorite pizza restaurant, The Pizza Sisters, went up in flames. I decided to take that as a sign. My mom told me that my weight was weighing me down. “Exercise will make you happier, being skinny will make you happier. Don’t you want to be skinny?”

But I didn’t want to be skinny. I didn’t want to be anything.


By senior year, the only reasons I had to smile were when the day was over, when the week was over, and the anticipation of the year being over. I got rejected from seven out of nine colleges -- but my fifth choice, a small college out west came through. I needed to get away, so I would get away. I would get away from my sharpie-sniffing mom, the friends I didn’t have, and I would get away from the reminder that I was breathing, thinking, feeling, I was awake, I was alive.