The Short Unfulfilling Tale of an Unsatisfied Girl

A Nonficiton Short Story

Age 1 �" 3

The baby girl Paige sleeps in a simple white crib in her parent’s room. Nothing belongs to her. She accepts what she is given and is lucky enough to be welcomed into a loving caring family.

Age 4 �" 5

The parents move out of the large bedroom and the girl moves in. Paige shares the space with her two sisters. One older. One younger. Three single beds line the wall and are separated by three bedside tables. Each girl decorates her bedside table. Paige’s bedside table holds nothing but a lamp, a practical possession to guide her journey to bed. The most difficult decision the girl’s face is where to build their teddy bear mountain.

Age 6

The girls continue to share the large room. There are still three single beds but much has changed. The oldest girl must sleep closest to the large windows and Paige takes the bed with the least distance to her parents’ room. The lamp that once led her to bed now stays on for protection throughout the night. Paige’s most valuable possession is the prayer she painstakingly copied and sticky-taped above her bed.

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I shall die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.

Age 7 �" 8

The girls continue to share the large bedroom. A beautiful homemade barbie doll house is the girls’ pride and joy and is often the root of any argument that arises between them. Paige’s simple white blanket is now replaced with a bright pink doona. Paige cherishes the gift and takes special care to ensure her bed is always made. The prayer remains taped above her bed but has become worn and fails to offer the comfort it once did. Paige’s sleep is often disrupted by night terrors that send her reaching for her newest teddy as she is no longer welcomed in her parent’s bed.

Age 9

The girls continue to share the large room. Three coloured mosquito nets now adorn each bed. One purple. One blue. Paige’s is pink. The Barbie house has been missing from the room since it was destroyed in a particularly violent sisterly argument. The childish joy that had once been the heart of the shared room disappeared as quickly as the doll house. The youngest girl is always outside. The oldest always has homework. Paige is left feeling lost and so she turns to books for company. At first she reads anything she can get her hands on. She reads hand me down copies of pony club. She reads jokes from her father’s reader’s digest collection. She borrows books from her school library until she had borrowed every single one. It is around October when she receives a book club leaflet in class. Paige rushes home eager to tell her mum about all the wonderful books she is going to buy. As children often do Paige overestimates the worth of her piggy bank and so sets about saving enough money for her coveted Franklin book set. She saves every coin she finds and is delighted the day her package arrives. Five books and one green flashlight. Paige had spent so long yearning for the set that when it actually arrived it failed to live up her expectations and so her quest for something that would satisfy her continues.

Age 10 �" 11

A lot changes this year. It is decided that the eldest sister is old enough for her own room. She moves into a separate room at the opposite end of the house and receives a double bed and her own lockable door. Paige sees this and the seeds of jealously are planted firmly in her belly. In the absence of the eldest sister Paige sets about personalising her room in every way she can. She rearranges furniture on a weekly basis, discards old clothes and puts away all of her childish toys. She begs her parents for various trinkets and decorations that when she receives fail to sate her seemingly unquenchable desire for self-expression. She sees what everyone else has and despite doing everything her young mind can think of to mirror what she sees she never feels truly satisfied.

Age 12

Paige still shares the room with her younger sister. She feels betrayed that upon her ascension into womanhood she is not offered the same privileges that her older sister had received. She grows impatient and begins to demand excessive amounts of clothing, books and decorations as though they will compensate for the lack of recognition she feels she receives. Frustrated she builds walls around herself, both physical and emotional. She fills a book shelf and uses it to separate herself from her younger sister whom she is forced to continue to share a room with. Paige receives pretty much everything she asks for but never feels as though she is receiving what she deserves. She assumes her dissatisfaction is caused by her parents who refuse to offer her the same privileges as her sister and so she goes about ensuring they make up for the mistakes in any way she deems necessary.

Age 13 �" 14

Paige remains in the childhood room she had shared with her younger sister for the past ten years. She grows increasingly antagonistic and reclusive and does everything in her power to achieve her current goal of having her own room. She protests and cries and screams every single day. She fights relentlessly and eventually her parents agree to renovate the large bedroom the sisters had once shared. The large space becomes two smaller rooms, each with a double bed. The first night Paige sleeps in her new room she expects to feel satisfied. But instead she becomes anxious as her frightened, regretful eyes scan the room that once again fails to live up to her expectations. She longs for the large safe space she had once shared with her sisters and begins to hate herself for selfishly destroying the sacred space. She is trapped. She can’t complain about her new room after convincing her parents it was the one thing that would make her happy. And so she struggles to feel at home as she is wracked with the guilt of destroying what was once such a joyful room.

Age 15

Paige finally has her own room. She sleeps under the same roof, has the same window and the same carpet as she has had since she was four but can no longer grasp the feeling of home that she once associated with the space. She assumes it is because her room isn’t quite finished yet. She argues that her room never looks right because of the old carpet and the drab curtains. She complains about everything. She is not complaining out of anger or greed but because of the overwhelming sense she feels that she does not belong in the house that is supposed to be her home. When she receives a new doona for Christmas she takes great care in making her bed and rearranging her room, ensuring the colour scheme matches the new bedding. Despite her meticulous efforts to perfect her room when she is alone in her room at night the one thing she longs for the three single beds along the plain white wall.

Age 16

Paige still lives in her little unsatisfying room. She has come to realise in her wise old age that she no longer cares about all of her teenage belongings and so she discards them, forgetting the effort she had once put in to obtaining them. When her parents refuse to buy her a bed frame that she feels is necessary to express her changing style she takes apart the bed frame that her father built and places the bare mattress on the floor in protest. She grows to hate herself to her very core in her new surroundings. She honestly believes that if she gets rid of all of the meaningless objects in her room there would be space for her to express her true self. But, no matter how hard she tries to prove herself to her parents and overcome her need to fill her life with hollow possessions she believes her parents still see her as the childish little girl who acted like a spoilt brat. What they really see is a sad little girl who is trying so very hard to find her place in the world.

Age 17 �" 18

Paige stands alone in the very empty room. She removes everything that belongs to her and packs it into boxes. She stands in a space that she has tried to claim as her own but remains just a room with four walls and a bed. There are no photos, no trinkets. No proof of the person she had been or the person she had become. She leaves for college and the room stays standing as if she had never lived there at all. As she struggles to find sleep in her new room far away from home she wishes again for the large bedroom she had once shared with her sisters. Whenever she returns home for long weekends or holidays she is reminded of the childhood she shared with her family and the wasted years she spent craving a space that had been there all along. The room is redecorated by her mother who places items from Paige’s childhood in a priceless timeline around the room. The mismatching collection of memories now frame the space and offer Paige a glimpse of the sense of belonging she has been seeking her whole life.

Age 19

Paige now sits alone in a rental apartment and recollects the happy days that she regretfully failed to cherish when she had the chance. She once again has a simple bedroom with simple white walls. Her most treasured item takes priority on her bedside table, a picture of the three smiling sisters in a large bedroom with three single beds lining the wall.