To all things, provided that they exist, there is a beginning. Although I would love to act confident and say that I have a definite motive for this blog, I must admit that I don’t. After all, delving one foot in and one foot out into a matter is how most things start, no? On second thought, we all ask questions that we don’t exactly want an answer to, and perhaps the one I just asked was one of them. Rather, a combination of pent up emotions, things that were better off unsaid, and honest curiosity as to how blogging worked was what inspired me to create this blog. As of yet, I’m not sure how this will pan out, as I came onto wordpress with no definite plan in mind. However, I do hope to continue writing on here and perhaps relay some of my feelings to the site – whether this be simply a soliloquy or perhaps something more broad, I’m still excited to start writing on a more public platform.
So where should I begin?
Let me take it back to a few days ago, or perhaps the cumulation of feelings for quite a time now. A teacher of mine said something to the class that has been on my mind ever since, and it went as follows: “Being ignored is the worst feeling that there is. The lack of acknowledgement in the fact that one exists, in comparison to everything else that you could do to a human, causes the most pain.” Of course, there is truth in her words – at some point in our lives, we have all experienced the feelings that come with being ignored by others – whether it be a result of a fight, or simply a joke made out of anger between two friends. However, is the idea true? Is it actuality that being ignored makes us feel the worst, even beyond other physical and mental pains? One would have to put this into perspective as to how they are feeling in the present moment in order to answer that question. To me, what my teacher said held a certain honesty to it, that resonated especially with my second grade self. When I was in second grade, I was extremely shy – to a level that if a teacher were to talk to me, I would remain completely silent, choosing only to nod or shake my head as a sign of acknowledgement. While some may perceive this as rude, it boggles me how others cannot understand the mind of someone who has a near fear of socialization – it is not because we wish to offend you, but rather, we are afraid that we will offend you. Talking caused me an incredible amount of fear and embarrassment, but not so much did it pain me as when I was laughed at for something I did not know was going on.
An example of this occurred a mere day ago, when I walked into the library after agreeing to meet a friend there after school. Upon arrival, I saw the aforementioned friend sitting with two girls that I was familiar with, and after I sat down, one of the girls promptly leaned over and poked my face, saying things along the lines of, “Oh, you’re so pretty,” and ” You have such nice skin!”. I’m good enough friends with her to not get extremely disturbed by the fact that she was touching my face, and based on how I knew the girl to be, it wasn’t out of the blue for her to do something odd. The other two started laughing as the girl continued on, and after they took out their phones to take pictures of me, my suspicion rose. The other girl at the table followed in her friend’s footsteps, and all three of them had not stopped laughing from the moment I sat down at the table. After a few minutes, I touched my cheek, and was horrified to find black streak on the tips of my fingers. A whole new fit of giggles arose from the trio, and I suddenly realized that they had rubbed something on my face. Looking into the snapchat screen of one of the girls, I saw that lines of black had been smeared all over my cheeks and nose bridge. I don’t remember what expression I had on my face in that moment, but it must have been one of shock, as one of the girls quickly tried to remedy, “It was his idea!”, pointing at the friend I had originally agreed to meet.
At first, I was relatively unaffected. Perhaps my emotions had not quite kicked in yet, and I sat at the table for a good five minutes while they proceeded to congratulate each other and laugh about the success of their plan. I was actually a bit confused at myself, wondering why I wasn’t feeling any emotions, then quickly dismissing the fact, as I often find myself being ambivalent to things that are supposedly passed off as a jokes. However, as the three chatted amongst each other, happy as could be, I suddenly found myself hit with a wave of sadness, interlaced with hints of anger and resentment. Grabbing a textbook I had brought with me, I walked over to a different corner of the library and sat down. Mulling over my own thoughts for some minutes, I came to the realization that I indeed did feel negatively about what they had done to me, and my cheeks flushed in embarrassment. Was this a replay of the scenes that so traumatized me when I was younger, innocently puzzled as to why the others around me had started to look at me in laugh? Indeed, it was. I could not pinpoint what emotions I was feeling, but I knew that there wasn’t a quick remedy or forgiveness to the situation. I quickly went over to the table in order to get the rest of my belongings, during which time one of the three questioned “Oh, are you leaving? Bye, then.” Surprisingly, I didn’t have the energy to tell him that I wasn’t exactly going, and instead chose to mumble something quickly under my breath, telling them that I was studying on my own in another part of the library.
As I sat down in a chair near the back of the building, a wave of near betrayal hit me. The one with whom I had agreed to meet at the library was someone who I thought would have been more sensitive with the feelings of another person, but alas, I had been wrong. In silent retrospect, it had occurred to me that maybe it wasn’t such a big deal – they had thought of the act as a joke, and they didn’t know what kind of memories I had linking to the situation they had put me in. While you would be quite reserved to someone you have just met, people that you have developed a bond with over the course of time are those that you can be open with and trust. But in this case, although I was decently close with them and they thought of what they had done as something to laugh about, it wasn’t okay to me.
Ostensibly, I simply required peace for solitary studying, and smiled at them when I passed by them later in the hour, but inside, the seven year old within me screamed out in hurt. When one of them thought that there was something wrong, he asked me if I was okay. My response of “I’m fine,” didn’t quite make it past my lips, coming out as whisper. Was I okay? No, I was not, but how was he to know? We pass off these feelings of sadness and store them away far too often, and in that moment, I stored yet another emotion away to think over on my own. All in all, I was quite appreciative of this acknowledgement, considering that it was the only one I received from any of the three for the rest of the day apart from a quick “Goodbye” as they were leaving.
Maybe they thought that I wanted to be left alone, but to me, in the moments that I caught glimpses of them sitting at the table, each smile they gave to one another caused a shooting pain within my mind, twistingly agonizing, the bitterness pulling at the corners of my lips. In reality, there are not many times when we wish to be completely alone, even when we try to convince ourselves that we should be. Isolation is a dread that cannot occur when someone else is beside you. I desperately wanted for one of them to come over and ask me, honestly, if I was alright, but I knew that none of them would. We all get caught up in moments of joy, tending to leave ones who are sad behind, and I understood this as I sat in my chair at the edge of the library, desperately wishing, praying to be acknowledged or saved from my own wallowing. They would never have known what my pain had felt like as the pricks at my eyes threatened to burn, acid tracing pain and embarrassment down past a smile that had long faded. The charcoal on my face was wiped off, but the memories of that day will never fade.
So in some ways, my teacher was right. Loneliness is the base of sadness, and the ignorance of ones existence causes definite pain. Each experience indeed causes one to grow – although we are warned of things, we never really pay heed to sayings unless placed into a situation upon which the warning is put into action. All in all, my first entry is a reminder – for all the things you shouldn’t have done, but did, and for all the things you should have done, but didn’t.
Reflecting,
A.