... and now I can say it because I broke the 100 page mark over break.
This is part of it:
"Remember when I put red streaks in my hair last year? I'd dyed it black, much to your chagrin, and, thinking it was too dull, I tried to spice it up with big chunks of red. I dyed it when you were off doing something somewhere else (so that you would not tell me not to) and sadly, the dye didn't even show. You were relieved, but I was bummed.
Nevertheless, the dye still lives on. Literally. The dye may not have been strong enough for my hair follicles, but it was definitely strong enough to attach itself to the kitchen furniture in my somewhat furnished apartment. It was also strong enough to streak the bathroom wall. After seeing the damage inflicted on the kitchen, I quickly hopped in the shower to rinse out the dye. Big mistake. The dye went everywhere. In the back of the bathtub, on the shower curtain, on the wall... somehow even on the toilet seat. My landlord was pissed but my twenty-eight year old roommate was even more annoyed. She demanded I scrub it off the wall. I would have done it anyways, but two hours later when I couldn't get it off, she gave me a tongue lashing worse than you or my father have ever given me.
She told me to straighten up. She told me that I was as responsible as an eleven year old and that I needed to grow up. I told her that I was grown up, at least for my age. I was twenty-one. I could do everything except rent a car. She rolled her eyes at me and slammed the door of her room. I padded outside, climbed onto the apartment's roof- not a hard feat- and called you just to laugh. You laughed, too, but then you told me she was probably right. I did need to be more responsible."
This is another part of it:
"I started playing piano when I was eight years old. I begged and pleaded and wailed for a piano. My parents did not have a lot of money, so they said I would have to wait. I told my parents that if I did not have a piano, I would die. My parents shook their heads and told me that my dad needed to get settled into his new job first. He made good money, but I was far from an only child. I cried. I told them I wanted a piano more than I ever wanted to breathe.
One day, my dad came home covered in smiles. He told me he had something for me. I followed him out of my room, leaving my current drawing abandoned on the floor. I anticipated a peanut butter candy bar or watercolors. It was better. My dad covered my eyes (much in the fashion he did when he surprised me with my first car... which I totaled the next month). He took me out to the garage. And there it was: a piano.
My dad had been helping an old lady clean out her garage. In the back, she had a tall, unused piano. It was scratched and out of tune and it had huge pedals and a bad black paint job, but it did not matter to me. Once upon a time, it had been the kind of piano that could play itself, but not anymore. The scrolls had been lost long ago and it was itching for me to be its new master.
We kept it in the garage. My mother did not want it in the house because it was ugly and almost as tall as the ceiling. The winters were cold so every afternoon I put on fingerless gloves and hammered away on my favorite possession. I did not care that I had to play in the garage. I could be Mozart or Beethoven or Chopin with that old, beat up piano. My dad ruffled my chocolate brown hair. "It has spunk," he said, "Just like you." I hugged him. I had never been happier.
Time flew by with that piano and before I knew it my parents bought me a new one. They invested in a cheery brown piano with pedals that worked and a matching chestnut bench that was not too tall for me. We put my new piano in the living room, where we usually kept the Christmas tree. Every day I came home from school and ran my fingers of the wood and ivory. I was in love for the first time.
I got into a fight with my piano teacher when I was eleven. In reality, she was a lovely women from church who was a trained piano professional. She had majored in music in college and my parents paid her a lot of money they did not really have so that I could learn from the best. To me, she was a tyrant who made me sit up straight, curl my fingers, and keep with the dynamics splashed across the page. I did not want to listen to her.
My parents knew I could go somewhere with music. I knew I could, too, but I did not want to go anywhere with my teacher. I did not want to curl my fingers like I was holding a ball, I did not want to play piano games on the computer. I wanted to pound the keys for expression- I did not want to play delicately like a flower. I did not want to follow the music; I wanted to find notes myself and and play dynamics however I wanted to. I also did not want to log each minute I spent with the piano, but my teacher said I had to learn discipline and responsibility so that I could learn the right way. I told her I did not want to learn the right way. I told her I was not coming back.
I got into my mama's car after I left my lesson. She asked me how it went. I told her I was never, ever, ever coming back to play piano for my teacher. I told her I did not like to be yelled at, and I wanted to play however I saw fit. My mama told me I could not quit. I told her that I was going to and that no one could stop me. I would never set foot into that house again, I told her. I hated having to wear ugly footies with balls on the back of them whenever I forgot to wear socks of my own. My teacher did not want her students to be barefoot or to wear shoes in her house. My feet longed to be free.
Everyone thought I had great potential. I played piano at least two hours a day and they all believed I had the makings of a great musician. They thought I should study piano in college, but I did not want to think that far ahead. I was only eleven. My parents' friends asked if I wanted to compose my own sons. I did not even know what that meant. I just wanted to be able to have fun and pound keys. I just wanted to be free. I did not want to be told what to do.
I did not like finger exercises. I told my mama that if I did one more my fingers would fall off. They would be crippled. I would not be able to help do the dishes after dinner. I did not want to compete in competitions, either. It did not matter that I always got high scores. I did not want to sit stick straight. I wanted to teach myself. I cried. My mother frowned. She told me she would talk to my father at home, but that he was not going to be happy with me.
My father sat me down and made a list of pros and cons. He said that he wanted me to stick with a professional teacher, but he was tired of having this argument. We'd had it repeatedly for six months. I told him I was tired of having it, too, and that it would stop when they let me stop. He gritted his teeth to keep from laughing at me. I scowled at him. He told me had bought me a beautiful piano. I told him I did not want to quit piano; I just wanted to quit my teacher. He told me we would make a deal. Then he made me call my teacher and had me apologize for the argument we'd engaged in earlier. She accepted my apology and said that she would see me next week. "No," I calmly informed her, "I'm not coming back. Ever." Then I hung up the phone. My dad heard me and grounded me for being disrespectful. Then he called my teacher and apologized. I slunk away, victorious."
P.S. It's a fictional narrative.
P.S.S. This is pretty raw and unedited.
