a book of ordinary people

Something must have happened during those years, AKA my lost years. These people all seemed to have become possessed, while I was not around. They all looked like the ghosts in a hunted house, wandering around aimlessly with no light in their eyes. I knew them from a long ago; in fact I used to be one of them or better said I was supposed to be one of them. I rebelled, I dropped out or maybe I got lucky and left. I never quiet figure this one out, all I know is that at one point I had to take another road and leave them.

I can swear that one of those ghosts even tried hard to avoid talking to me; maybe he was afraid that I look into his eyes and read into his soul. I wanted to tell him that he had nothing to fear, there was nothing to read into anyways.

One of the few traits that I have always cherished and tried hard to keep and nourish in myself was the fact that when something did not made sense to me I would stop doing whatever I was doing and would do anything to make sense of it before going on with my life. It is hard to explain, but I picked up this habit during the math classes many moons ago. Maybe it was my father who kept telling me: “No memorization, you have to understand it. “ Or maybe it was that time that I just gave up on geometry and memorized couple of problems hoping I would get away with it and I never did. During exam I got things confused and couldn’t remember what was what? I was not about to give up on my “A,” so I sat through the whole exam and finally figured it out. It was the triangles; I was finally able to prove them equal.

Years later my life stopped making sense to me; while it was making a lot of sense to everybody else around me. I clearly remember the day when I broke done into tears in front of my mother and told her I just could not go on.” I don’t even know myself anymore. I don’t understand anything anymore; nothing is making sense to me. “She told me to go and find myself, because at the end that was all that I needed to live my life. So I left or I was forced to leave, or I quit or I had to quit. Maybe one day I write the honest account of the matter and let others pick the right verb, I can’t or maybe I have no desire to do so.

I had to live through many painful years, lost, lonely, depressed, confused, and angry to say the least. There were times that I stood there at the end of my rope wondering if I had to hang myself with the rope. I wished I could go back, I wished I never left or quit or whatever. I envied all of the ones who stayed and lived the life that I was supposed to live. I never noticed that all these years what scared me was the fact that I had to face myself. Eventually I let go of my fears one by one and came to terms with myself. It was hard, it still is. Dark days are always around the corner, loneliness always comes back and looks me right in the face right when I expect her the least and brings anxiety attacks with her. I have learned to just sit in the corner and watch everything without judging myself. Now things have started to make some sense to me, not a whole lot but some, I have a long way to go.

I needed to go back and see things for myself; and I did. There are moments, very short moments indeed; in life when all of a sudden everything comes together and starts making sense, one of those AHA moments. And seeing those hunted faces made sense of all my lost years for a moment at least. I was supposed to become one of them, and I never did. I am neither happier nor more successful than them. I have not traveled more than any of them; I am not cooler nor have more friends than any of them. But I am not a ghost wandering around in that hunted mansion wondering what has happened to my life? I left there a while back.

Labels: ordinary stories, scooters

This entry was posted on Monday, October 08, 2007 at 9:28 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.