An Ordinary Heart Cameron Finch
I
must have had something wrong with me to begin with. During sessions of make-believe play with childhood friends, whenever I was given the choice of character, I always chose the injured one. The girl whose leg surgery went wrong, whose foot got sewn on backwards. The girl who played outside in the snow and whose brain got drilled by a wayward icicle. The girl with the horrific overbite, who wore headgear at all times. The pioneer girl who got consumption and died before Act Two. Maybe I didn’t have something wrong with me, per se. Maybe I thought that life needed to be more messed up to become truly exciting. Maybe I thought that danger was directly proportional to interest. Is it enough to love? Is it enough to breathe? Somebody rip my heart out and leave me here to bleed. Is it enough to die? Somebody save my life. I’d rather be anything but ordinary please. Avril Lavigne’s voice sang through the car stereo. March 2003, I was in third grade. My parents had taken me to Montreal and Quebec City for spring vacation. I was a goody two shoes who so desperately wanted to be a bad girl, a sk8er grl, a complicated girl. So naturally I made them play Avril’s debut album, Let Go, on constant repeat. When in Canada… This particular song, “Anything But Ordinary,” haunted me through the entire trip. I replayed the line, “rip my heart out and leave me here to bleed” over and over in my head. How would it happen—the ripping out of the heart? What kinds of tools would slice cleanly through all that flesh? A 32 Finch
