someone worth imitating

the quintessence of a role model has been somewhat of a more difficult task to uphold nowadays. There are things that people sometimes just have to avoid to be a better person in the world. I honestly have been failed by so many people in life and just looking back to the past makes me wonder where all my role models went. Who did they become? It's tough not having someone to look up to; someone close by I can actually see as being someone I want to grow up to be someday.

Everyone was so close-knit from what I remember to be my past. Everything was so simple. It was super easy to find someone you could look up to. For me, in the first grade, it was Vanessa Sanchez. She was my "big buddy"--the tall eighth grader who would come once every week to visit and color pictures with me or do art projects with me. She was awesome. I was mostly in awe by her hair--so smooth and straight and silky and long and beautiful. And here I was, the girl with the semi-bowl haircut, the short bob that did not match with the bone structure of my face, but yet seemed to make people go "awwww...how cute" whenever they saw me. But Vanessa's hair was something to be envied. Not only that, she was super sweet. She held my hand through inexplicable times. She was the shoulder I could lean on whenever I was in pain or was troubled. She even bought me presents (a stuffed animal that I still have and cherish) and I didn't complain. But she was someone--someone who I could look up to at such a young age.

When I became an eighth grader, I was that role model to someone, that first grader. She was awesome, as frightened and afraid of life as I was. But I smothered her with compassion, buying her Spice Girls photo albums and other 90's pop culture paraphernalia. I was pretty good at it, only because I felt it for myself, I had a role model and so did she.

As time progressed, role models seemed to gradually dissipate and soon, there was no one to look up to. There was only myself. I had to learn things on my own and learn from my mistakes, stumble on my own feet. I metaphorically chose the red pill--to see reality as it truly is with open eyes and a sense of rebirth. Although the blue pill would have probably been the more pragmatic choice along with the saying "Ignorance is bliss," it would not have made me the person that I am today.

I can safely say that there only about four people in my life that still remain my role models. There are even more likely epitomes of role models among those four. I'm not saying that they choose to help me or provide good examples for me to learn from. I'm saying that I, myself, choose to learn from them. I get small tidbits of life and experience from them, whether they be advice on how to do a certain task or where to go to get my hair cut. These people, the select few, are my role models.

Where are yours?

Better yet...riddle me this:
Are you a role model?