Irrelevance

Shallow

When I was younger, I announced to my family that I wanted to be an author.

My dad laughed so hard that he knocked himself unconscious. My mom asked whether I'd meant to say orthodontist or something equally as intelligent. My step sister scoffed in my face and called me a loser with pitiful life goals. Safe to say, I never brought it up again to them, until I had to in college, when I was chosen to compete in an international writing competition in the UK. My parents refused to let me go and, "waste my life away" as they put it, when I could be successful like the rest of the family (in other words; a materialistic, gold digging housewife like my mom or a superficial actor like my stepdad).

It was at this point, in the midst of my failure to oblige to the family status quo, that Stephanie, my step sister, chose to rise up to the occasion and announce that she would be becoming a model.

My parents threw her a party...

"coincidentally" on the day that I was suppose to have left for the UK, using it as a blatant excuse for me not to go, claiming that it would uncivil of me to leave on the day that my (half) sister was being celebrated for her achievement. The irony killed me but I stuck it out like a good little girl all through the party, before lying to my parents and running away to the UK to hopefully start fresh and follow my dreams.

I never won the writing competition but after a year of vigorous writing and working my way up, it all finally paid off.

I hadn't spoken to my family that year. I ran away but ever since I'd gotten published, my step sister suddenly seemed interested in my writing; insisting that I write a biography about her. I didn't bother telling her how impossible it would be get inside her head, much less try to make her life sound less shallow than it actually is. It was with this thought in mind that I decided that on the off chance, meaning never, if I did happen to write a biography for her, it would be called, 'Inside the mind of a shallow person'...

though I can't imagine there'd be much in it (pun intended).

So I finally gathered the courage to cut off all ties with my family, going as far as changing my name and surname and moved from place to place, writing stories until I'd shot up into the big leagues.

For a while I got off on it all; the fame, the fortune and everything in between.

I admit it.

I was an addict.

I ended up falling in the very same shallow puddle of superficiality that I'd spent my life swimming away from and with the realisation of what I'd become, I made a choice. I tried to get back to the deep end in which I'd first started to reevaluate my life but it was too late.

My past, like a colossal wave knocked me under and as I gasped for air, my head barely above the water, I had to let out a sadistic laugh because I realized that funnily enough, in the end...

The depth was what drowned me.