Painting Annalise

01.Pilot

I've decided to leave this line for comments on the motivational pictures <3

Fine, an overused word that doesn't need to be thought about before the mouth spits it out. From a toddler to an adult, in the office to the supermarket, it's so practiced that it's probably stored somewhere in our brains just like our names. So once the question of your well-being is asked, it rushes out - leaving no time for you to think of what else to say.

Except in the few situations when you just shake your head and let the tears fall. But then again, how many people actually care enough to demand if that's the truth? The majority just go on with the conversation. Because unconsciously we have turned how are you? into a new form of greeting that requires a set answer.

Who am I to judge? I am just like everyone else when it comes to saying I'm fine. There just hasn't been a moment where it felt wrong, no matter how far from the word I felt. I can't remember if I was taught as a child to always say I'm fine but it was what always came out. I believe that's the only thing that qualifies me to be called normal.

According to my aunty who just happens to be the best storyteller to ever exist, I was born on a stormy night with thunder that competed with my mum for who could produce the loudest noise. Of course, she lost. My mum would have probably told the story herself numerous times, but she fainted the very moment her large arms wrapped around me. No, I wasn't an ugly baby covered in blood with no hair. She was simply tired.

Being a sore loser since birth, I held back my tears out of anger at being pushed out five weeks before the predicted delivery date. Tiny, barely one kilogram, covered in vernix caseosa and blood the doctors stared confused after hitting me twice, while the nurses looked at my mum with pity as tears streamed down her face yet she held onto my dad's hand like he was some form of luck.

Deciding to give them a break a loud cry left my mouth causing her to shed more tears of joy instead of sorrow. Yes, it was at that moment she fainted.

Thanks to how tiny I was, my mum was kept in the hospital for two weeks while I was placed in a glass prison-like box just an arms-length away. Till without warning, I was taken out of the bleached corridors and blue faded sheets into the cruel world of homo sapiens. Their hands grabbing my cheeks no matter how many tears I forced my eyes to release. They would just pass me around till I ended up back in the arms of the lady who carried me for approximately, eight months.

Then from being cute, I was labeled chubby and suddenly my size wasn't accepted by society and that's when I was given the title, fat. Eight years down the line and I still preferred the peach hospital walls to being dropped off by my mum at school daily.

A frown on my face even in pictures except when forced to smile, which is why I'll always stand by my statement that pictures lie especially in the twenty-first century. Who needs a plane ticket when you can just edit your background. No one understood, but then again, they never tried to because to them my life was perfect enough. I mean what could be so horrible that would make a thirteen-year-old who's paying no bills and has no responsibilities so miserable. Because to so many people, my parent's being comfortable was enough to make me happy.

Add four more years and I was angrier, the letters sent home to my parents inviting them to school were proof. When asked what was wrong I would say I'm fine. I did feel fine until I had to leave my bed whether it was to school or even to the mall. It wasn't always like this, I tried to speak, once, twice, several times, it's just once everyone realizes you're always sad it doesn't become a topic anymore, it becomes a part of you. The sad girl. The quiet girl. The loner girl. Not the girl who's sad, or the girl who's quiet neither is it the girl who's alone.