Everything Changes

Chapter Thirty-Three: Average

Juliana found a window seat on the train after what felt like twenty minutes of searching. She popped in her AirPods, playing her favorite song as she contently watched the palm trees fly by. She was visiting Lavigne in Orlando for the first time that summer and she couldn't have been more excited. They had a few fun things planned, such as going to Disney World and taking a road trip to Cocoa Beach with his hometown friends.

It was safe to say that she was so completely satisfied with her life at the moment - just like she had been for the past two years. She loved her college, her major, her friends, her teammates, her boyfriend... things couldn't have been more than perfect.

Seven years ago, if someone were to tell little thirteen year old Juliana that her future looked like this, she wouldn't believe it. She had a boyfriend? She was a college athlete? She had the most perfect friends? It seemed too good to be true... but it was true.

Juliana had always been a daydreamer - even in her early years of life. When her classmates enjoyed playing Barbies or building block towers at recess, Juliana preferred to sit in the corner and doodle. But as she doodled, she was always daydreaming about the next big thing in her life. In elementary school, all she thought about was middle school. What new friends would she meet there? Would she get a boyfriend? In middle school, all she thought about was high school. Would she make the soccer team? Would she befriend the popular girls? Would she finally get a boyfriend? She could never settle with what she had at the moment. She always daydreamed about bigger and better things - and things she knew she would never have.

To her, daydreaming acted as a coping method. Something to make her feel more confident. Something to make her feel better about herself. Something to mask her boring reality with delusion.

Juliana was born into an average family in Fairfax, Virginia. Her father was a physical education teacher at a nearby high school and her mother was attending college in D.C. for her master's degree in school counseling. She didn't mind living in Virginia, as all of her family resided there - she just wished she lived somewhere a little more exciting. So, when her parents shared the news that they'd be moving to south Florida when she turned nine years old, she was ecstatic.

But moving to Florida didn't make her life feel any less mundane. Sure, now she was less than ten minutes from the beach instead of three hours, it was summer year round and she had to donate all of her winter clothes, and she had a pool and a view of the canal in her backyard. Her life was visibly different in Florida - but she didn't feel any different. In truth, she had always felt average. Just average. She was never the prettiest girl in the class... or the skinniest, smartest, tallest, funniest, or richest... she was always plain boring no matter how hard she tried to stand out.

That was why she looked up to her older sister, Lily. They were seven years apart - which seemed like a huge age difference when Juliana was in fifth grade and Lily was a freshman in college. In the eyes of Juliana, her older sister was so cool - far from just average, even - and she wanted to be just like her. She copied everything from her hairstyles to her fashion sense to the television shows she watched to how she posed in pictures. And for a while she didn't feel like the most average person in the classroom - she felt cool... just like her older sister.

But when she entered eighth grade, she realized she was nothing like her older sister after all. Lily loved floral patterns, pink and glittery accessories, wedged shoes, girly television shows, and curled and braided hairstyles - whereas Juliana didn't care for her outfits or for styling them with accessories, instead preferred athletic shirts and large t-shirts paired with comfy sneakers. And she didn't really enjoy watching television shows or how her hair looked every morning. She always pulled it back into a high ponytail and a headband, calling it a day.