What the dont understand about birthdays and what they never
tell you is that when you're eleven you're also ten,
and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four,
and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your
elevnth birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you dont. You
open your eyes and everything is just like yesterday, only
its today. You feel like youre still ten. And you
are-Underneath the year that makes you eleven.
Like some days you might say something stupid, and thats the
part of you that is still ten. And maybe somedays you need to
sit in your mama's lap because youre scared, and thats
the part of you that is five. And maybe one day when youre
all grown up you will need to cry like if youre three, and
thats okay. Thats what I tell mama when she is sad and needs
to cry. Maybe she is feeling three.
Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like
the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls
that fit one inside the other one. Each year inside the next
one. Thats how being an eleven year old is.
You dont feel eleven. Not right away. It takes a few days,
weeks even, sometimes even months before you say eleven when
they ask you. And you dont feel smart eleven, not until youre
almsot twelve. Thats the way it
is. -Sandra Cisneros
skyblue946 · 1 decade ago
I read that book last year, 'eleven' is a very good book.
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