“We are all dead inside…” she told me. “Trying to look alive for other’s sake.”
One nigh, in frontof yet another pile of notes I need to read, these thoughts came into my mind like a bomb in a silent room. Looking at the reflection in front of the dirty mirror I never got the time to clean because of how caught up I am in life at the moment, I saw a tired girl, currently in crisis… only in her mid-twenties…placed somewhere in between of the person she needs to be and the person she wanted to be.
In life, its always a choice and along the trip, you’ll find yourself lost once or twice or even a couple more times before you’ll lose your mind, your own self and just prefer to deteriorate all at once but you never choose the latter because you are human and as a weak species, you look around you...notice every success of those people near you and wish…hope…want to be like them as well.
It doest not matter how exhausted you are…nor does it matter how bad you wanted to stop your track and take a breather because your greed will tell you that take a small pause and you’ll be left behind. Funny isn’t it? Truth is, it hurt more in reality. The pain of wanting to do something but not being able to take a step forward because you have mattered much more important to attend to…more relevant, that’s what they tell you. They feed your mind, your head will all pleasantries, all sweet thoughts and dreams not minding that maybe, just maybe you never dreamt of any of those in the first place. But you carry on because you wanted to be strong. Right? You wanted to succeed. Correct? So you keep on going, cover the wound inflicted, heal them as fast as you can and stand up without telling them anything about every single scar in your arm or the small fading lines in your wrist because it is never worth their time.
The emotional rollercoaster of opening up your bandages, unloading your mental baggage will just be too complicated for those who will never be part of these times. They’ll only see you as a coward, hiding behind the bandwagon of an unstable kid but I’m not a kid anymore and that’s exactly is the problem. I have my own mind, I see things in a different perspective…I want to be myself.
Sadly, all they hear are clichés and ideals that does not matter.
“Those will never…even in a lifetime will make you a doctor.” They told me.
“So what?” I wanted to tell them. I never wanted to be a doctor. I want to write, to travel, take photos and meet people. I want to tell stories, paint images with my words and inspire those who cannot inspire their selves. I want to capture the moments, hand them on walls and let people around the world see what my eyes can see. I want to fall in love, fall out of love and just be happy. I wanted to be me and fear nothing. I want to be me and feel strongly about it. I want to be me and hopefully, you’ll be proud of it.
But no! There will be better options than just follow a dream that carries no title. There will be better choices than become a mere artist. Passion…they always say…cannot feed you forever. Passion…they added… is only okay at first but in the long run, when the magic fades and the adrenaline of my rebellious side passes…I’ll be left with nothing.
That and more is inked in my head like a bad poetry I wanted to erase that is why as I sit in front of my desk and try to digest every note in the paper I hold, I smile a little and try to toughen up.
“We are all dead inside…” I told myself. “Just hand in there and look alive for their sake,” I added before a tear roll down my cheek, wetting the remaining pile of paper in my lap.