Ocean full of Secrets

Part I_13

3rd of March 2014

So today I went back to school. I guess I'm just not the class-skipping kind of person. However, I still didn't really participate or talk a lot in general. Luckily nobody asked where I had been, not even Nick and Saki. I guess they're not surprised by my behaviour anymore. This time, though, they tried a different approach in how to treat me. They tried to act as if everything was normal. As if I hadn't ignored around 50 calls from them in the last 48 hours. As if I wasn't the worst possible friend they could possibly have.

I should probably be grateful for them not bringing up any of that. And I think deep down I am. I just didn't show them and therefore it doesn't matter how I really feel deep down. Right? It matters what attitude I show towards them and that is ... none, really. I don't participate in their conversations, I hardly ever even listen to them and I can rarely bring myself to look them in the eyes. And all the time I wish for nothing more than to treat them the way they deserve and to not be such a jerk. But I just can't help it. Of course that's not an excuse. But it fells as if I have lost all control over my body. Every time I watch them argue about anything I want nothing more than to join the conversation. But all I do is stand next to them, paralysed, listening to the clattering of Saki's bracelets as she is doing her exaggerated gestures to support her otherwise not so iron-clad arguments. No matter how often I tell my mouth to open up and speak, no words are coming out. No matter how insistently I tell my face to smile, the best I can manage to do is keep up the eye contact for a few seconds longer.

I'm a failure. I'm a horrible person. I don't know if it's because I'm too proud and stubborn, or too ashamed and caught up in my own self-pity and misery. Whatever the reason, there is absolutely no excuse for my behaviour. I hate myself for treating them the way I do. They deserve so much more. Unlike me. I don't deserve their smiles or their attempts to cheer me up, Nick's sweet gestures or Saki's lighten-the-mood jokes. I wish I could leave this fantasy world that I have been creating in my head and return to normal life. But I don't even deserve that. I don't deserve to remember. I deserve to suffer.

A few months ago I could've honestly told you that I was the most open-minded and tolerant person I could be. Now, however, I'm afraid that has changed. I've become bitter and judgemental. For example, I passed a very interesting man on the street today. The first thing I noticed about him were his socks. He was walking in them. And they were pretty worn out too. As if he had been walking in them for quite a while. When I lifted my eyes I saw that he was wearing a suit. Pants, shirt, tie and his jacket he was carrying over his shoulder. The next thing I noticed was that his entire body, socks to head, was covered in mud and dirt and his clothes were torn and ripped at several places. Nevertheless he was smiling the most genuine and light-hearted, however exhausted and dirty, smile I have seen in a long time. He reminded me of a soldier returning from war. Still I couldn't get myself to smile back at him. Instead, like everyone else, I shot him a look of utter confusion with a slight touch of disgust and repulsion. Only minutes later, when I was already sitting on the bus, did I realise what a horrible mistake I had made.

Too late my mind started to come up with scenarios justifying his looks and completely humiliating me for my behaviour. For example, what if he wasn't just some weird guy on the street? What if really he had just returned from some magical adventure in a faraway country? There he had to fight against evil and defend his friends. However, despite all their efforts they were still being captured and brought to the king. Then, while the king was considering ways in which to kill the trespassers, our guy (still in his suit from work) noticed a humongous selection of leather items neatly arranged all around the huge chamber. From belts and hats to gloves and jackets. So he figured it was worth a shot and he asked the king if he was allowed to take off his shoes because they were starting to hurt his feet. And as he said that he noticed the king's face light up with desire and glee as his whole attention was suddenly drawn to the shoes. Those in dirt covered, badly scratched, but still somewhat shining, leather shoes. He could see the king's pupils dilating and he knew his plan was working.

Soon they had made a mutually satisfying deal, which said that our guy and his friends were allowed to leave unharmed in exchange for the shoes. However, only after they had all shared a delicious and ceremonial dinner. During the festivities the king told our guy the story of how he became so severely obsessed with leather. You see, leather was a very rare, almost inexistent material in the king's land. One time though, he was still a young prince by then, he came across a small piece of what he later learned had once been a handbag. His first thought was that it must be the skin of an angel that fell from heaven, so soft and smooth. When he was later told that the rag he was kissing and caressing so fondly was actually the skin of a cow, a farm animal from planet earth, he refused to believe it.

And now our weird guy and his friends have finally returned home. Exhausted, but happy. And everyone is looking at him as if he was some disgusting hobo in the clothes of a wannabe businessman. When really, he is a hero.

This is only one of many possible scenarios and maybe not the most likely. But my point was not that he really visited a magical country, but that there are so many valid, possible explanations for his appearance and I didn't think of any the moment I saw him. If I had I might have reacted more appropriately. I should have greeted him like a hero. And isn't that what we should always do? I mean, couldn't literally everyone just have returned from an amazing adventure and deserve our respect and congratulations? Even if that adventure was nothing more than getting out of bed in the morning. Isn't everyone the hero or heroine of their lives and therefore deserves to be treated as such?

Isn't it fascinating that when you look around every single other person is living a life just as complex as yours? With all their own troubles and complications, friends and enemies, joys and sorrows, hopes and regrets. They all have a past that made them the person they are now and a future of which they are just as oblivious as you. And how weird is it that they might be walking around the city thinking the same about you? Or maybe they're not. Maybe they're too caught up in their own thoughts and worries. Maybe the woman sitting opposite me on the bus is on her way to train station, running away from her abusive boyfriend, her past or even the law. Or maybe the boy behind me is worrying about how he is supposed to find time for his schoolwork while having to care for his sick father and his little sisters. Completely unaware of that, the girl next to him might be thinking of her best friend who she has been in love with for years but who for all she knows doesn't return those feelings. Little does she know that her friend is only too afraid to admit that she feels the same way because she is afraid that her parents wouldn't love her anymore if they knew.

It's almost funny how all of these people are sitting on the exact same bus for reasons of all kinds. Travelling the same road only different lines.

A little girl, maybe three or four years old, just entered the bus with a man I'm assuming is her dad. They seem to be happy. Sadly she isn't going to stay this young, innocent and worriless forever. Some day society will force her to grow up. She will have a boyfriend or a girlfriend or neither. Maybe shell become the most popular girl in the class, maybe she'll be the odd one out. Maybe she'll be a bully, maybe the victim of other bullies. Maybe she'll get straight as in school, maybe she will do drugs and end up in as a juvenile delinquent. Maybe she will marry the first man she ever falls in love with, maybe he will turn out to be a dominant, abusive patriarch and she will be stuck in the marriage forever. Maybe she'll never marry and have a successful career instead. Maybe both. Maybe she'll become depressive and cut, starve or kill herself. Maybe she will have the perfect family with a husband and two children, living in a big house with a white fence and a dog. Maybe she will have her heart broken so badly she will never recover from it. Maybe she'll become president some day, maybe she will end up homeless on the street. Maybe, maybe, maybe ... too many "Maybe"s. Life consists of "Maybe"s and "What if"s and there is something both wonderful and terrifying about that. About the way you never know what tomorrow will look like and whether or not you will like what will happen. Life changes every day and it changes you every day. Even if you might not be aware of it. And then one day you wake up and look in the mirror and the person that looks back at you is not who you used to be. And you ask yourself "How did this happen and why did I let it?" But that is just the way of the world and you can't stop it. You cannot plan your future into the minutest detail. Life doesn't take orders. Life, as John Lennon (the singer not my dog) so fittingly put it, is what happens while you're busy making other plans. So go out, make plans and let life happen and before you know it you're in someone else's body, living someone else's life.

Yours,

Cassie