Just Daria

Daria’s long brown curls could often be spotted from the hilltop next to her grandparents’ home that overlooked the water. The lake was her favorite thing about having to stay with her grandparents while her mom got her act together again.

It was a small lake, surrounded by homes with large windows, big flowing trees, rickety docks storing small row boats, and a couple sandy areas. One of the sandy areas- the one Daria frequented- also housed a couple swings, a teeter totter, and a couple benches beneath some trees. One light, positioned on a large pole near the boat dock, brightened the little beach after the sun set.

Sometimes Daria could be seen swinging, her legs and toes pointing so far upward toward the sky as if she was reaching for the clouds with her feet, her back collapsed-looking and being held by her arms and hands holding onto the rusty chain, her hair nearly sweeping the ground every time her feet reached for the sky.

Sometimes she’d just sit in the swing and let the rusty chains twist, kicking her feet into the ground, looking out into the water that mirrored the sky. A fish would jump up on occasion, a car would drive by behind her. But otherwise it was just Daria.

Sometimes Daria went to the lake with her headphones listening to some of her favorite music. Sometimes she’d go with notebook and pen.  And when she did go to write, she always sat on one of the benches.

Writing was her therapy- even at 14.

Daria took to her journal like she was gossiping with a best friend. She wrote poems about her life, her wants, her needs, her anger, her sadness. She wrote letters to boys she had crushes on, to adults who she was angry with.

It didn’t matter what was going on around her at the time, when she sat on the bench overlooking the water and wrote, the world was a better place. It turned into the world she wanted it to be and allowed her to dream of a time when she’d be sitting there on that very bench…

The fog rolling in before sunset, tall historic buildings lurking behind her.

She was beautiful... Breathtaking.

Her long hair flowed so perfectly, gently. 

Her blue eyes sparkled in the twilight.

Jurien would put his hand on her shoulder and a smile danced across her face.

Her well-manicured hand would rest atop Jurien’s and the stone on her ring would display a little light show.

Daria and Jurien were oh so very happily married.

And rich.

And maybe even a little famous.