The Premises of an Ideal Life and Additional Poetry

Epilogue

The nineteen-year-old girl is now seated down in a nineteen-eighties coffee shop.
Brown varnished portraits are hanging on the brick-naked wall, which already has its cement crumbling where the bricks were once glued. The shop is relatively large, with roughly 20 chairs and 10 tables, making it clear that the main purpose of this strategic arrangement is to bring couples strolling around and share a private spicy conversation
White, lighted candles turn the rusty iron legs of the tables into something rather charming, sparking the same feeling we have when we meet an old lady on the street who has become somewhat “vintage”.
Aria spends quite some time staring at the menu and decides to order a piece of carrot cake, the Brazilian one though. Once she ate this different variation of the traditional American recipe, glazed in chocolate and purely tinted in the natural orange colour of the carrots, she fell in love with its simplicity. Taking a big bite at the sweet and fluffy sponge, she snatches her diary from the side purse, clicks the top of the pen, and starts writing.

Michelle's Caffe, November 31, 2011

Dear insane carrot cake,
I did it. I said everything that could come to my mind and, surprisingly, I don’t repent it. Was I too tough on her? Heck yeah. Should I feel afraid of what I’ll do from now on? I mean, Quinn has a point: I don’t have anyone left, except maybe for Stevan and Olivia, in the case they aren’t too gloomy for social interaction… Mom is arriving in half an hour to pick me up and, although we’re going home at last, what will I do next? I’m taking up a job in a couple of months, trying to get into a state University perhaps?
I feel like a 20-pound burden has left my exhausted rump and now I have to put some salve into it. Restart my life in the smoothest, most patient way possible. Ironically, Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune is playing in the cafe’s gramophone at this very moment, not quite matching its Michael-Jackson-and-David-Bowie theme. The music is so profound- reminds me of Funny Face- with the glamorous Audrey Hepburn. Maybe the music isn’t so out of context as I had predicted.
While I was in the coma nightmare- inside that insipid pulpit with ghosts and bats- I thought of finding an ideal for myself, a way to stick to the “right ways”, as extreme as it may sound. The thing was: what were these so-called right ways? Was it ending my toxic relationship with Quinn? Was it solving problems with mom? Understanding my dad?
I now came to realize that I must understand myself. The manners with which I work, my mind, my body, my person in full. Making all my good, grumpy, inspiring behaviors naked to my own eyes will be the only way to then change them to my liking.
I see now that once we act, think, talk a certain way doesn’t mean we have to use this image forever, to endure our mistakes and, worst of all, continue making them purposefully because we’re afraid of what people might make out if we act otherwise, “abnormally”.
Wow, she changed quite a lot, right? Frankly, I preferred when she was a little girl, she looks so fat, why isn’t she talking like she used to? I don’t like this new you, yikes!
I came to see that our personalities are palpable- if not tangible- meaning I can become whoever I want to, modify and remodify myself as much as I like until I see a spear of light.
Damn it, there is no right way, no ideal life, no perfect state, only my own little brain that makes it all up. Am I lost? Am I really that lost, carrot cake?
Well, what about principles?
I feel like principles are what can determine our actions or mollify them. And I think I have found mine… So sit down because it’s time for some Aria therapy.
I see life as a road where we struggle to not get hit by the bad choices available to us. To live is to try staying on the sidewalk at all times and not be tempted to get to know what the road feels like. We have to continue walking, walking, walking, until our feet are sore and covered in blisters from the inequity of it all.
We will fall and get up repeatedly, always taking a deep breath before following the path once more. The signs on the street will tell us to keep away, but some people will turn a blind eye to them, only interested in going to the road to have a distraction and forget about the problems provided by the long walk ahead.
When things are at their hardest to endure, the farthest we can get to the adventurous feeling- coming from the reflected heat on the concrete floor and its yellow stripes- is at the very end of the precipice separating the sidewalk from the road. Yet, although the steep and cautiously carved path made by the hands of the Big Man is arduous, we will be going somewhere.
We will be moving forwards
Progressing towards humanity.
Aria can’t quite recollect when she starts to cry, sobbing uncontrollably; similar to the rush of emotions when finding a gold mine at the deep end of a turbulent ocean. Humanity, that’s what I have come to see, she whispers for the millionth time, and all the cafe’s customers pity such an emotional scene. In a timeless lapse, Aria laughs with the piano’s symphony and gives the hyacinths adorning the table’s center a broad smile, covered in crumbs of cake. 
    Oh sweet, sweet life.