I left home some 90 days ago to pursue my dreams.
Nahhh. Just joking!
Not sure what my dreams are. Everyone thinks I would become a writer. I don't know why they say so. I have been struggling with it for ages. Now I'm tired. I won't even try. I just wanna go to the Antarctic and see some penguins.
I wanna look at floating ice and listen to the silence over there. Maybe see sunset and sunrise as well if there is any.
I have thoughts I wanna say out loud. I wanna put them on paper. They might make my life just a little bit less meaningless. Because I am sure if I put a million thoughts here, it is guaranteed that at least one of them will be useful to someone, somewhere. It must be!
No one can be that stupid! right?
Right?
... any way!
I feel like I should have started the story from the day I arrived here- the way high school movies start with the transfer students stepping into the class, or how the cameras follow fresh graduates to their new job.
Well, I am a fresh graduate!
Now you know.
I was an international student in Chemical Engineering somewhere in Asia. I went back home for a year. Stayed inside till I almost turned into a vampire...cause that's how I was raised. It didn't matter that I was in my twenties.
My parents heard too many stories about friends turning on their friends and all...and so did not want me to have any friends since I was a child. There were stories of kids taking their friend's books and putting curses on them so that they lost their intelligence and went mad.
Yes. Witchcraft.
Witchcraft rumors are the reason I grew up without friends and have trouble making new ones now. That- and the fact that I was the last child in a family of six children who was the first to finish high school, go to college, then go abroad for college.
Now I don't know if witchcraft backstabs happened...but I had the highest grades in my class both in middle school and high school and so...dad and mom thought I could be a target.
Of course, mom and dad had never been to school. Their era of school would have the smartest kids branded as the coolest kids. My generation didn't, and my parents had no idea.
They couldn't fathom the fact that to everyone else, I was a nobody. I doubt anyone in my school envied my grades- as high as they were for I went to a Catholic school and all the kids there had rich parents. While I was turning down half-tuition scholarship offers to study abroad I got from awesome colleges that I took 2 SATs, 1 ACT, and an IELTS for... the dumbest "hotties" (yes-they bullied me -but you already knew that) didn't even have to graduate from high school to go to America.
They didn't have to take the college entrance examination. They didn't have to run home after school to study. They could stay and have fun after school, they could go out on weekends, put makeup on and have boyfriends and stuff.
Oh well. Looking back on that- I guess I kinda made it. I got to go to Asia at last for school, then landed a job in Europe. As friendless and awkward I may be, at least I, without money and relatives, got to go places no one ever thought I would.
I remember this one mean girl in high school who used to come early to school as I did. She was half European and half African. She had big eyes, a straight nose, and all the perfect looks of a prom queen. She played basketball and was the class clown. I bet everyone envied her.
On one of those mornings, she came and sat with me on the cold cement chairs in front of the school gates where I usually waited until the guard showed up and opened the school gates. She looked me straight in the eye and told me...
"you know what? you may be smart and all...but when we get older, you won't get to have a better life than we do...- you'll never actually become anything. "
Did she have to be that brutal?
Well...with great beauty comes great confidence I guess. That confidence is then topped with some cruelty, rudeness, and absolute bitchiness. That was my spicy breakfast for that day. I for once had nothing to reply to her. I didn't see much of her after that.
I recently heard that she got pregnant and aborted the child when we reached senior year. And that she got pregnant again and kept the second child.
She is a mother now.
I can not believe it.
But then again, some of my classmates have 3 children. Half of my high school classmates are married and I'm right here getting high on chitchat with a guy.
I feel like I would have to put away my lone wolf's skin and rejoin society again. I feel like it's time to date someone at least...or hold hands and get kissed. Teens ten years younger than I have done it! Why the hell am I scared?
Attachment issues I bet.
I guess I am trying not to be important to anyone the way I became important to my parents. I loved them so much and I felt I owed them as much that I tried to make them happy. I came home straight from school and went straight to study. I didn't hang out with everyone else in my class. I pushed away those who were close to me knowing that I wouldn't be able to hang out with them as much as I should. I stopped playing volleyball for the school team because mom and dad didn't want me to leave the house on Saturdays for training.
I...
buried my head in my pillow and shut out the calls of youth.
I forced myself to grow up, put away my wishes, and fulfilled theirs.
I was blessed, with luck and love and comfort that my siblings were not so lucky to have that to demand other things was to be ungrateful.
So...I shut out the world and lived in my head until I left home for college.
I thought I would be free in college since I was gonna be there by myself. It went well at first. I was okay the first semester- I made an effort to make friends and found friends. The second semester I tried to avoid them because I felt as if I was not allowed to have friends or be happy. I couldn't be myself when I was with other people. The third semester in college, they started avoiding me too. In the fourth semester, when I was deeply depressed, had my grades nearly below sea level, and was thinking of committing suicide, a letter of acceptance was sent to me from a college in Asia with a full scholarship.
I took it- tried to run away from my problems.
The first two years in Asia passed in a hassle. All I wanted was good grades and some fun time. I focused on school but didn't try to make friends. I did so many activities and shined like a star.
But I had no friends. I guess others felt threatened by me...and ganged up on me. They made me feel as if I was unwanted there. I took it seriously and considered suicide again...went home to see mom and dad before that. Then a pandemic happened. I stayed home. With 8000 kms between me and all the mean people, I got to see the big picture- that they hated me because I was smarter and my good grades affected their scholarships and my skills allowed me to take positions in leadership that they wanted for themselves.
I saw that they were only scared.
I laughed at that.
Because to be honest, am not that smart, or that skilled. It was funny that they considered me a threat, given the genius that existed in the world. I realized I needed to go to a better place.
After a thousand prayers, I guess I did.
My new job is challenging. I don't know what to do half of the time. I am learning things now- and no one considers me 'smart' or a 'threat'...(except for dave and lee of course- we will get back to that later).
When they heard where I went, all the mean people tried to reach out to me. I left their messages unread. I have moved on (and decided to be the bitch they've made me out to be when I was only trying to help them back then ). I dismissed their cries for "take me with you to the better place" as they dismissed my opinions on things.
I would have narrated that for you slowly as there is some exaggerated, elaborate drama they made up. But I have erased them from my mind one by one. I have freed up my brain for nicer things and better people.
I have decided to tell you the better side of my story.
...after...a...nap.