People always say actions speak louder than words but what exactly do you preceive words to be? After all, speaking is an action and speech is formed by words. If not then, what about the written word? Writing is an action; speech is an action thus words are actions. How about them apples?
You know you go through this phase in life when you’re desperately searching for yourself, trying to find who you want to be, who everyone else wants you to be. Quinlan said, “The saddest thing in life is not knowing who the person you were meant to be is.” Now, is this true or is it just recycled garbage, written in teacher’s manuals that they are told to spout off to us to give us some sense of inspiration so we may find ourselves and think back and say, “Wow, that teacher made a difference. That teacher helped me find who I am today.” Everyone wants to be the smart one, the pretty one, the funny one, the skinny one, the one that everyone always remembers. Which one are you? Are you the one that I will look back upon years from now and say yeah, that one was the smart one, the pretty one, the funny one, the skinny one, the one I will always remember?
I remember in my high school yearbook, one of the categories for “Class Favorites” was “Most Memorable Boy/Girl,” the girl who won had some form of Tourettes (no joke). People said they would remember her because of her outbursts in their math class or during the ACT even though she was all the way at the end of the building on a completely different floor. Will I remember her when I look back upon high school twenty years from now? It’s possible but probably not. Who knows what I will remember? I will probably be some senile fool at the age of 40. A bunch of people told me that they put me down for that category because I was “The Asian” and everyone loves asians, right? Well, except for the right wingers who want to throw all of us out of the country because apparently we’re all terrorists but that’s a different spiel for a different hour. Was I disappointed when I was sitting in the back of the yearbook room, counting votes, when I found out that some kid with Tourettes is more memorable than me? Probably just a little bit but why does it matter? Why does it matter if PBHS’ graduating class of 2003 finds her more memorable than me? Am I going to remember all of them? Am I going to remember any of them? I’m sure the ones that I will remember will remember me just the same and if they don’t, why should it be any skin off my back?
Why do we let other people dictate our lives? Why are other people’s expectations the yard stick we measure our self worth by? Everyone wants to be the smart one, the pretty one, the funny one, the skinny one, the one who everyone always remembers. You want to be the smart one, the pretty one, the funny one, the skinny one, the one who everyone will always remember. I’ll admit, I want to be the smart one, the pretty one, the funny one, the skinny one, the one who everyone will always remember. We live by the expectations of others to convince ourselves that we do exist, that our lives are not insignificant muddled moments. We live by others so we know that some how some where we do matter to some one.
You know it’s pretty rough finding out that you are just another expendable item in someone’s pantry. Say you knew someone who just loved Teddy Grahams, the chocolate kind and you were Teddy Grahams, except you were the chocolate chip kind and this someone liked you for a while because you were new and different but still had the original good stuff - chocolate - in you. One day this someone forgot you existed. And over the time when this someone was eating your brother, sister, auntie, and uncle out of the Teddy Graham box, you grew close to this person, began to care deeply for this person (because they had a great eating technique or something…whatever) and then the person just threw you into the back of the pantry one day, never to open the box again. You sat there, wondering, waiting, wishing to see daylight again. The time never came. You grew stale. You grew moldy. You died. And when you died, a part of me died because I am just like you. There was a time when I was the whole world and still more to someone but now that person doesn’t even remember my name. I wonder, would you like me better if there were a new improved version of me? I wonder, do I care enough to provide that? I wonder, when did I forget that I matter? I wonder why I have convinced myself that I can only be me if you can love that me. I wonder why I put you on that pedastal. You must be someone awful special to matter that much. If you are that special then why do memories of you leave a bittersweet taste in my mouth?
You only like me because I make you laugh. You only like me because you think I’m pretty. You only like me because you think you can hold an intelligent conversation with me. If these were the things I wanted to be liked for, why do I feel so unsatisfied? Am I an ungrateful self absorbed brat? No, I don’t think so. I feel unsatisfied because all of the above are expendable. I want you to like me for who I am, even if neither one of us know exactly what that is. I want to matter when I’m not funny, when I’m not pretty, when I’m not smart.
It hurts the most when you find yourself within inches of finding what you want most, knowing that when you reach out to grasp it, it will vanish right before your eyes and the earth shattering, heart breaking reassurance that you are all alone will hit you like a blow to the face.
