Break it before it breaks you.

A world of hypocrisy.

A world full of people who criticize others when they themselves are at fault of the same judgments they are making.

Unfortunately, you give advice that you wouldn’t necessarily follow.
Unfortunately, you have issues with what certain people do when you do the same things unknowingly.
Unfortunately, no one can ever be one-sided with the world and to themselves.

My semester is over and it has been an extremely generous one.
It has offered me different people, situations, compromise, growth, and best of all judgments.

I started to think that some people weren’t worth saving.
In that I mean keeping up with or having around.
Why have people who are only bad influences and stimulate no growth whatsoever in my life?

The strange thing was they were always around. Everyone knows at least one person they deem as somewhat unproductive to have a friendship. In all honesty, it happens whether you’d like to beat around the bush or not.
Now it may have not started that way, but you go into things never realizing how you could come out in the end.

That’s what I did. I foolishly took my next step thinking I had everything under control and that I’d be happy with the choices that I have made. And of course, I am for the most part. But the vivid memories I share with certain faces and places don’t fade to gray so easily.

And in the end, at the last step, it’s good to know you had it all.
The down falls and uphill slopes of hardships that ended with a smile.
The hopes of new and better things entering your life.
The dreams that you thought were unattainable somehow becoming that much closer to you.
Yes, I had it all and I’m happy to have.

To those of you who couldn’t see, try to see it now.
I’m sure most of you know but choose not the believe to be honest.
We shun out ideas of truth and aspire to follow false ideas of what we see as the good life.
In reality, it’s not. It’s not supposed to be that way and putting yourself through all of that makes you take that much longer in reaching home.

Why do you do the things you do that you know are wrong?

Why do you say the things you say when you know it’s not true?

Why do we talk,walk, and act like everyone else but ourselves?
You can answer that. I know I can.

And many people wonder why they can’t recognize me, as if up til now, I was someone else.
Well, i haven’t been anyone but me except that I dealt with places and people who only ended up upsetting me in the end. I don’t want to be hurt by others actions and I don’t want to be tamed by fake securities.
It’s a love/hate relationship like every aspect of our lives, but it’s worth balancing. It’s worth the risk of feeling different and possibly lost along the way.
I know I did. But hey, here I am. And I know what makes me.

Break it before it breaks you.

What I love/hate about you.

What I love about my solitude (aka living alone):

You can eat whatever you want in the fridge because you know it’s all yours.

There is no lights out at a certain time policy or inconvenience of cooperating with other’s sleep schedules.

You have the ultimate say in what channel or radio station you want to stay on, along with the furniture and general layout of the house.

This is a little depressing, but you can have your sad and miserable phases without other people having to worry about your odd behavior around the house.

If you forget to bring something into the bathroom before a shower, you can run out naked as long as your windows are covered.

You can have secrets.

Do things that aren’t your style and not get criticized for it.

You can sing aloud in the shower extremely poorly and choose the most embarrassing songs as well.

Yours stuff doesn’t magically disappear or get relocated.

No one can tell you to fix the habits that you know are already bad.

No sorting of mail. It’s all yours. That applies to the phone line too.

You should be able to sleep through everything since there shouldn’t be any other noise in the house.

You don’t have to clean up after others, especially with dishes.

You can vacuum or open up windows whenever you want since no one is there to complain about it being too cold or too early/late to clean.

If there is a situation to calls for avoidance, you have no one to blame it on or use as an excuse to get out of a sticky situation. Ex. You stub your toe really bad and you’re writhing in pain on and banging your fist against the floor simultaneously. After the pain subsides, you realize you have an anal neighbor downstairs who already seems to hate you. When he/she comes up, you blame it on the room mate who is “supposedly” moving out by next week and won’t bother the neighbors again.

You don’t have to worry about interrupting someone or bringing home friends at anytime. It’s always convenient as long as the time suits your schedule.

What I love about living with someone:

It doesn’t get so lonely, especially on bad weather days. Stay in for a rainy day.

If you spot a spider or centipede, it’s all up to your room mate to kill it or do something about it.

If the lights go out, you’ll have company…in the dark.

No privacy. You can’t have secrets.

It’s safer. Less chance of getting robbed or whatever. Make sure your roomie is a jetininjablackbeltpirate.

You have a buddy for board games! I love Scrabble

If you keel over, there is someone there to call 911. Or at least I hope they do?

You have someone for a second opinion in clothing or for open discussion about recent events/happenings.

You can share stuff! Whatever that may be.

You can vent to someone after getting home from a bad day at school or work.

Share the load of work. Rotate for cleaning or laundry.

Have someone to eat with.

You need to talk more. Your mornings will be less of zombie mode if you need to reply to a “good morning”. (Unless you plan on ignoring them.)

Someone can wake you up if you know you’re going to have a late night.

Forgot something on the way out but you’re already running late. Call room mate, they come downstairs/out with it and you save yourself a good 5 minutes!

Merging: It goes both ways.

I see it all the time.

You just lose sight of where you’re heading.

You’ve had enough of whatever you’ve been withstanding.

You feel the need to merge with traffic.

I see it in musicians. They have a set of morals and life standards that all get altered with the pressures of molding.
Molding to fit the norm and working with the media to further appeal when they only excelled because they were special in some way.

Well, we’re all musicians. We’re all out there doing different yet the same things while trying to stand out. Standing out makes you a hypocrite but at that point, that’s your last worry. Making it or succeeding is the act of being accepted by the norm. Being accepted by the norm is merging. You merge constantly until you’ve lost sight of who you were or why you started out here.

That special is long gone. Long forgotten.

And even for me, I could peg down the faces that I once knew.
They weren’t perfect–none are– but they were true to themselves.
Where did they go?

When you fall intentionally, you are hiding.
You are hiding from where you were heading.
You are hiding from the people who believed in you.
You are hiding from what you thought could be failures.
You are hiding from you.

We all do it. We merge with everyone else and wherever they are heading.
It changes the way we appear and act regularly while slowly altering what we know to be true.
We merge to avoid everyone else when in reality, you are merging with everyone else.
That will make sense the first time you read it and never after that.

And where is everyone heading exactly?
No one knows but we all keep driving anyway.
Half of us think we know where we are headed
and the other half just go with it because there isn’t anywhere else to turn.

(hug)

I never noticed how much a hug could carry before yesterday.

I mean I know, it’s a good way to say hello and goodbye– or the further help conclude it, but wow.

I didn’t have much growing up.
I had everything in a sense that I was provided for and that’s really all I needed. But hey come on, I think about all the things I didn’t have present in my life too. Who doesn’t?

There was indeed a lack of known affection(they showed me their love by working and paying the bills. ) since my parents were constantly working and I guess just hearing or feeling (aka hugs!) an emotional gesture makes all the difference. I never had the chance to really feel that feeling before.

Sure, I get and give hugs to friends and family when the time calls for it, but I think I did it more out of instinct or mannerisms that have developed around us due to society over actually embracing it.

I received a gift yesterday. It wasn’t that big or small, but it was just heart-warming. It was an unexpected gesture and I didn’t even know what to say. Instead, there was a hug after softly spoken gratitude. The hug said it all.

It was as if the hug said my words, my gratitude for me.
It was a good hug.

Certain words’ meanings are the same as how the word just generally sounds. Hug is a cute and warm word. It’s short and to the point, just like a hug.

Hug.

Hoodwinked

I get a vocab word sent to my phone every morning and today’s was hoodwinked.
Fun little or not so little word, isn’t it? It means tricked, but it sounds like such a fun word.

Thursdays are cleaning days. This includes vacuuming, dusting, the laundry, and filtering out the build up of nonsense in my head. It’s nice and I just go straight back to work afterwards.

My first college semester is coming to an end rather quickly. Yesterday was the last set of lecture classes and all that is left now are the finals. It’s exhilarating yet astonishingly sad.

I’ve never been happy with the fact that time seems to move on so fast and a lot of the times, it leaves me in its dust.
Sometimes, I’d much prefer being in the dust than running along by its side in full speed. It scares me.

It’s scares me to no end actually.

It makes me feel anxious and out of time. Then I realize it really does not matter since everything comes to an end. Then I find myself caught in another vicious circle about why I work so much when I’m bound to die one day. (Of course, I fight that argument with myself by saying that I could make a difference in the amount of years that i am alive.)

But yes.  Every time I am outside with my dog, I watch her run around happily and stare at the grass when she isn’t close enough to observe. I see tiny purple and yellow flowers, grass, pine cones, a whole lot of dirt, and weeds.

I love weeds. I know it sounds odd and I probably feel this way because I have never had to weed-pick, but I think they’re special.

I think it’s safe to say that our lives are much like flowers. As children, we are buds– beautiful and young; highly anticipated. And when we reach our golden years, we have come to a full bloom. Of course, that is the highlight of a flower’s life. It’s colors are at full-scale, along with its petals, until it begins to wilt. Flowers wilt slowly and inevitably, showing the aging process in an almost painful way. They brown and wither, we wrinkle and lose posture while shrinking– it’s all the same.

But weeds… well.

Weeds will always look the same. They receive no more criticism than, “I don’t want them in my lawn,” and if you find them in their natural surroundings (not someone’s fertilized and mowed backyard) they are beautiful. Some are just green shrub-like plants, while others are more textured like dandelions. They are not awaiting to bloom nor will anyone notice them dying because they honestly don’t pay much attention to them. They are free to be and do whatever they want, but flowers always have to place in the show.

I want to be a dandelion. I don’t want to have to live up to any expectations of blooming or becoming something more, but I want to be that surprise that no one expected from a dandelion. They seem more normal to me. On top of that, they are more resilient. You could pull as many weeds as you want, but they will constantly come back to haunt you. I don’t haunt people, but what I’m saying is I’m here to stay. Weeds are much more powerful than we give them credit for. At least I think so.

We don’t wish upon roses, but we do wish upon dandelions.

But it’s nothing more than a weed.
They’re useless and hideous.
They only cause trouble.

I don’t think so. I just think they’re misunderstood, like many of us actually.
People bloom in different ways and definitely don’t follow a timed schedule for growth by any means.

If we wish upon dandelions, they are right up there with the stars.
Norms can really kill a perception of something or someone.
Nothing is set unless you believe it to be so.
In the end, we’ve all been hoodwinked, all the time by the way.

Disney Princesses are Frauds

I guess no one really thinks about this kind of stuff, but I for some reason do.

Let’s analyze the common 5 Disney Princesses.

1. Snow White from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
2. Cinderella from Cinderella
3. Aurora from Sleeping Beauty
4. Ariel from the Little Mermaid
5. Belle from Beauty and the Beast

Okay. As much as I love Disney, they have totally created this false concept of love for young girls or general viewers to perceive as falling in love. In reality, it’s either infatuation or idiocy.

They’re all big on “happily ever after” and “the end” when honestly, the whole plot was developed  around scenes full of singing and cute animals to distract you from the weak plot line. Well guess what? As hard as it was, I saw past the cute deer and bunnies.

Snow White was running away from her crazy step mother and ended up at a dwarf’s house. Her beauty allowed her a free stay and stopped an assassin from bringing her heart back to the queen aka. evil stepmother. Then she stupidly ate a poisoned apple and woke up to a prince she had never met in her life. The last scene is her and the prince riding away on his stead to his castle.

Cinderella is also being harassed around by her crazy stepmother and two stepsisters. She goes to a ball after a fairy god-mother shows up, falls in love after one dance with the prince, and manages to be extremely small-footed and ends up being re-united to her so-called prince charming.

Aurora is cursed as a child, raised anonymously by three disguised fairies and runs into a cloaked man while she was prancing around in the forest.  They prematurely  fall into a dance of love as strangers. She soon discovers that she is a princess and gets cursed into a sleep of death by a poisoned spindle. The prince makes it to her and kisses her to break the curse. Again, just another twist off Snow White. Or maybe vice versa.

Then there is Ariel. She stalked Eric and even role-played princess with a statue version of him in complete infatuation over his good looks. He fell in love with her for her beautiful voice and claimed that he would marry her when he found her. (Who would say that in all honesty?) They marry once Triton transforms her into a human, but this all happened within a week of meeting.

The only movie where I have seen love develop and flourish is with Belle and the beast. You see them hate each other for their flaws and misbehavior, but they grow to love each other by getting to know one another over time. Realistic. Much more realistic. They both have their doubts and insecurities about themselves and being together, but it ends up working out in the end. Belle didn’t fall for him for his good looks obviously and when he was human, she identified him by his blue eyes which showed her attention to detail. None of it was based on a “dream come true” concept and there was an actual struggle.

So 1/5 princesses isn’t so bad huh? Well, it is.

Because…

These plot lines all involve weakening the female lead. Why do they have to be so simple-minded or all unfortunate? They all have no mother or father present and seem to be living some sort of set up lifestyle that has no real or permanent home involved.

Cinderella is a maid at her “house”, Aurora lives in a cottage away from her real parents at the castle, Ariel wants to be human and doesn’t appreciate the sea, Snow White ran away and lives with dwarfs, and Belle was captive in the Beast’s castle.

You honestly can’t expect to tell children–young girls that a miserable life will be salvaged by a young prince on a horse someday. Don’t go looking around for poisoned apples or spindles because no one is coming to save you. Don’t sell your voice to some octopus to get a chance to meet some guy who you know nothing about except that he can play the flute and has a dog. Don’t sit there and wish for a fairy god-mother to rescue your evening by transforming your rodent friends and a pumpkin into a carriage. I’m sorry to tell you this but this kind of stuff  DOES NOT EXIST. (Neither does the tooth fairy if you didn’t know already)

As for Beauty and the Beast, they show the characters in a different light. Belle is intellectual; she is interested in reading and knows better than to marry a guy like Gaston for his mere good looks. She has her own opinions and even shares them aloud. Ex. She scolds the Beast when she notices that he has an awful temper. The guy she falls for isn’t even human when she fell in love. They have this whole issue with beauty and how the beast was “ugly”, therefore unworthy of life to the villagers. There was so much negativity and this created an unfortunate situation between the soon-to-be couple and practically killed the beast as well. They actually had to struggle to teach others that they were right for each other and that the Beast was actually kind-hearted. Why wasn’t their story as simple?

It aggravates me. It harbors the idea of weak female leads who have no say in their lives and are obviously not taking any measures to be ambitious…because we all know that we’ll be swept away by prince charming one day.

Love isn’t that simple.
Life isn’t that simple.
Nothing is that simple.

Symphony of Sounds

People are always waiting.
We’re constantly waiting for the next big thing to happen or possibly a little thing.

Everyday, I wait for the bus to take me home.
Everyday, I sit there and attempt to do something.

Did you ever notice that?
If you feel useless, you attempt to make yourself busy– no matter what the situation may be.

I’m not going to lie. I’m a people watcher. It fascinates me, sometimes more than others.
I find a seat on the bus and look around me. I don’t try too hard, but I see the few people on the outer rows aside me and ahead of me; possibly more. They’re all in suits or businessed-up with watches and high-tech phones in hand.
They are all consumed with work, a call– something else that I can’t identify with.

I laugh inside thinking they are all the same.
Sure, sometimes there are calls that can’t wait or things to tend to at inconvenient times (when you’re on the bus) but it can’t always be that way. No one is always busy.

We keep ourselves busy. We give ourselves busy-work.
Why? So we won’t think too much about other things. So we won’t feel awkward.

For awhile, I used to ride the bus and just listen to music.
Once my ears rimmed the little magical headphones, I was in a different world.
I was in a world where life made sense and bitten concepts seemed wholesome.
Most of the time, I found myself suspended on a cloud or something just as bliss, floating to a symphony of sounds.
The people around me, although not very loud, became even less noticeable.
Their voices became a whisper, perhaps the silent whistling of the wind.

This was where I was today.
Sitting, listening, thinking about whatever came into mind– letting it sit there the way it wanted to.
Occasionally, I would open my eyes or look around out of curiosity.
I always saw the same thing. A lot of wrists with fancy watches and a few inches up, the hand holding a fancy phone.

Fancy.

I’d mentally scoff, hoping I would never turn out that way even if I were to get involved with business.
That didn’t mean I would look like everyone else on this bus–did it?
I’d imagine they were not very fond of me either. I never did anything to displease them, but I just figured.
I know, that’s brash and superficial, but I think my attempt of avoiding any teen stereotypes made me fall into one unknowingly.

Slowly but surely. Maybe just a little.

I used to read very often on the 30 minute bus rides home. I found the time resourceful to catch up on my own reading or a class reading assignment. The bus would be dark with the exception of my seat, which would be glowing in radiance. I’m pretty sure–positive– that it bothered someone. Many  in fact slept through this ride. Eventually, I felt guilty and decided to join the dark side.

Lights out.

I switched over to my trust-worthy mp3, full of the 80’s raves, alternative rock, and light pop.
Maybe this was a better and safer me for the bus rides home, I thought to myself.

Eventually, I realized I was that kid I hated whenever I went somewhere because they just always had their headphones in, phone out for texting, and basically no manners. Don’t get me wrong, I love music. I also sometimes love texting, but combining that with arrogance, the smacking of gum, and strange highlights or clothing that’s part of a “phase” does not help teen stereotypes.

I recall this one time, I was at a grocery store, steering myself while texting someone extremely quickly. I didn’t have much to say and if it was longer, I would have stopped, moved myself out of the aisle, but I was following someone who was moving a little fast. Basically, I was poorly multi-tasking. Then, a man came sharply around the corner with a cart and I barely dodged him from his abrupt turn. I looked up to give the aisle like road my full attention. The man was already passing me when he said, “You kids need to put those phones away and start looking where you’re going.” Either his kid got in a phone related car accident recently or he had just stereotyped me as some kid.

I reanalysed myself on the bus. Am I that character? Am I heading towards careless, nonchalant teenager-mode who doesn’t care one bit or listen to people around them because their music is blasting in everyone’s ears? (I don’t blast my volume, but you get the picture) Because that’s how I felt. Unfortunately, we can say little to change a person’s mind sometimes. But we can say a lot through our actions.

We all fit physical groups. I have black hair, maybe yours is blond. I have crooked teeth, I’m not sure how yours are looking. Etcetera. We all do have some things in common.

We don’t like to be watched, so we try to appear busy whether we’re walking down the street or riding the bus.
We like to blend in, when everyone else is desperately trying to do the same thing.
We like to feel different inside–special, however you would like to separate yourself from others.
We don’t like to wait, but we’re somehow extremely good at keeping ourselves busy whether we’re acting or not.

There are various times where I’m just waiting.

Waiting to go to class in 10 minutes, so i kick out my phone to text or enjoy a round of tetris.
Waiting for my sister to pick me up from wherever, so I jam to a song all on my own.
Waiting for other people to realize something that they need to figure out on their own,
so I wait till that day comes.

Whatever it is, we’re all waiting.
Time and waiting. Say that a million times– oh wait, you already do.

It’s Just Bad for You.

I felt like cooking so I went to buy supplies at the grocery store with my dad.
Quality time with the parent–cheers!

This is how it sort of went:

It’s okay. It doesn’t happen too often so I enjoy it as long as there isn’t any confrontation of course.
He steered the cart as I directed him down the various aisles, comparing expiration dates and nutritional information.
He peered over my shoulders as if I had the answers to some test he would soon be taking.
I glanced up and questioned him silently with me eyes.

“How do you read those?” he asked curiously.
“This?” I replied pointing sharply at the calories.
“Yeah,” he said curtly.
“Oh, well, you just do…” I didn’t really know the answer in korean. In fact, I didn’t know the answer at all.

We passed through more aisles and he continued to watch me read the amounts of sodium and trans fat.

I picked up two different packages of soft taco shells to compare the sodium levels.
I proceeded to toss one back seeing that it was much higher than the one left in my hand.

My dad was looking at products too.
He squinted, trying to read the small writing on the data table. His eyes were definitely aging, along with the amounts of white hair. Oh dad, you’re old…literally.

“What is sodium?” I knew another question was heading my way.

Good question. “It’s…connected to salt..?” My voice rose towards the end.
“I know what salt is, but what’s sodium?” He ignored my answer(which sounded like another question); it was wrong anyways.
I paused, thinking about the best way to help him understand. Instantly, all my thoughts jumbled and I couldn’t think straight. This meant don’t try to sum it up at all. How frustrating.
“It’s just bad for you.” That was the best way I could sum it up and honestly, what good was it for me to explain it to him?

You know when you watch typical family show (Like Full House) and how the parents always have one of those one-on-one talks with their kids about why something like stealing or sex is wrong–or why they can’t go to some party or stay out late? Well, I kind of get why they use that phrase. The phrase, “Because i said so” or “It’s just bad for you.” Sometimes, it really is hard to explain something. Whether you’re trying to tell your immigrant father what sodium is or trying to tell someone you love why you can’t be with them…(Sorry, I couldn’t find a good enough equaivalent but that seems like something difficult to do) “It’s just bad for you” just makes sense. It’s the easier answer–right?

Unfortunately, it only makes sense to the person saying it.
The person receiving this is left with some excuse of an answer that only tells them that the person they are talking to has no idea what they’re talking about if they can’t back it up with literal facts or something other than, “It’s just bad for you.”

I could have went on about how sodium makes you bloat or that it’s perhaps associated with high cholesterol, but then he would have just asked me what cholesterol is. (Actually, he knows what that means, but while I explain something, he would definitely find another unidentifiable word for me to ill define)

In some ways, the reason you can’t define it is because there is some other underlying reason that you don’t want to tamper with. I mean, explaining to my dad what sodium is won’t make a huge difference, but with some other significant situation–it makes all the difference.

The reason why she can’t be with you.
The reason why something’s gotta change.
The reason why something’s not going to work out.
The reason why they can’t give you a straightforward answer…

is because they’re afraid.
Afraid that if they tried to explain themselves, they’d give one weak part of themselves away for you to question or use against them. Then when you question them, they won’t know what to do.
They’ve already said too much and now you can figure out the rest by yourself.
You just need to confirm it with them.

Try applying this to every strangely answered question you’ve been given. Every situation.
It’s all the same– reason wise. In the end, it hurts your pride or creates emotions that you don’t want to further provoke.

So when I’d ask my mom why we’re moving yet again, she would say something like, “We just are.”
The real question isn’t why this or that, it’s “why can’t you answers the stupid question?”

The reason why… is because… because what?

Better Left Unsaid.

As much as people don’t want to admit it, people change and sometimes, it’s not for the better.

For years, I would hear or see someone slump down to something they’re not.
I would pity them or isolate them from the people I wanted to associate myself from.
After a while, I figured that if I avoided them, they would forget about me.
Eventually, I should forget about them–right?

Well, here’s a strange encounter.
What if that person comes back to you to rekindle whatever you deemed unworthy from the point that person crossed the line?
There’s really nothing you can do about it.

I’ve never thought about it.
I figured if you’re out, you’re out for good.
No one makes three strikes and gets called back to the plate for–not a second chance– but a fourth chance.
That’s just not how things work.

This may sounds like I hold grudges or believe that people can’t change, but that’s all untrue.
I don’t hold grudges, nor do I honestly care if you change.
It can’t be helped, I’m not going to try–that’s not where I stand.
But still, it’s so strange that people think in circles.
And of course, circles have no beginning, no end, and definitely no room for anticipation.

You leave the good you have to seek the bad.
You find the bad and soon want to seek the good you left behind.
As you seek it, you realize it doesn’t exactly exist anymore.
It was left behind in your past surroundings–in your past friendships, past belongings, and past life.

I didn’t save it in a jar for you to unleash when you were ready for something–something aspiring.
Just look around. You’ll find parts of your old self everywhere you go.
They leave marks all over the place, just like your fingertips.
Unfortunately, you can’t salvage what’s been long gone.

You can regret as much as you want, but it’s not going to change anything.
That’s why I don’t regret, because a regret is a mistake you didn’t learn from.
Learn from it and move on.

I’m sure apologies are on that list–all the way at the top too.
But not all apologies are welcome, nor do they sound sincere to a person who simply lost faith in you.
How do you rekindle faith? How do you rekindle love?
You don’t, because trying to find something as complex as love within the same, abandoned place is like looking the teardrop that fell off that person’s face when you said goodbye.

Leave it there.
Don’t try to better yourself, make yourself feel better when you know you’re at fault.
You’re not going to get over anything that way.
Just drop everything.
Drop every fad in your life right now, drop every lie, and every perception.
Start fresh.

But wait.
That’s tough stuff.
Starting new isn’t exactly something you’re good at.
You’ve never really been good at it.
You’ve tried to some degree, but you find yourself more comfortable with youth’s worries.

I don’t know what to tell you.
I’m sure you can tell.

This doesn’t happen to me everyday.
I hope it doesn’t happen to you everyday.
Because any form of rejection is a jab at your eye.
You feel the moments you thought you were being brave through.
You feel the moments you thought would make a difference.
You feel every single twinge of fear you deserve.

So what should you do with it?

I have no clue, but don’t come looking for me.

All the same.

Yesterday, I only had one class due to a cancellation and decided to venture other bus systems to get home earlier.
I didn’t know what time the bus would show, so I got there early and just waited.

The weather was nice so I stood there.

There was nothing to look at besides some indecipherable scribblings on a wall and a bench close by that didn’t appeal to me for sitting purposes.
The bus stop was empty. I had placed myself right under the sign that read bus 410-NO SMOKING, knowing it would come at some point.
No one was around, but it didn’t worry me. Besides, if this experiment goes wrong, I could just catch the train and head to another stop nearby.
Cars passed by on the closest street parallel to me, but none of them had a reason to come into the bus stop cul-de-sac, so I was out of harm’s way.

So here I am standing again.
I gripped the “sleeves” of my ragged bookbag and pulled down. It was definitely out of habit, it served no purpose that I knew of–I guess it maybe relieved some sort of arm tension.
The clouds were graying; it was supposed to rain at some point, I guess it’ll be soon.
There was a compelling breeze that almost passed as cold, but it wasn’t quite there yet.

Again, I stood there.
I didn’t know what to think about, because I knew I was thinking about something even though I wasn’t concentrating on it.
I thought about the conversation I had with my History teacher that morning and how he said one sentence that entirely threw me off. “You’re too smart for that.” He nodded in slight disapproval as if he really meant it. He did really mean it.
The thought dropped…or went somewhere else towards the back of my mind where it could perhaps ponder on its own for a while.
I fidgeted, feeling awkward when no one was around to see me.

I walked back and forth towards the edge of the sidewalk where an uneven line of ants were running back and forth just like me except along the cracks of the cement. I smiled, thinking how simple their lives must be.
Simple, ugh. That triggers something. No wait, just stop yourself from thinking too much now before its too late.
I continued to pace. I guess it was a slow, careless pacing, because I had no idea what I had to ponder.
Too many things I guess. They all just jumbled, refrained from attacking me all at once and somehow it made me feel somewhat at peace.

I crack my knuckles gently, rock back and forth from my toes to heels and occasionally stay on my tippy-toes.
It makes me feel that much closer to the clouds for that split second.

I try to stay put, not even wondering when this bus will arrive, but how to pass the time without overthinking.
Music? Sounds good. Headphones on. Not really listening, but it distracts me a little. I get lost in the words sometimes.

I look at the ants again. I can’t help it. I’m looking at my ugly toes and my eyes inch forward towards them instinctively.
They’re all running on one invisible road. Its as if they can see something I can’t see–a system, a road, a lifestyle perhaps.

They’re so small, so fragile.
Hah, I wonder what I look like to them.
Just imagine, them dropping whatever they’re doing to look at some giant whose hair is covering their entire face as the bend over to get a better look at a colony of ants. Gravity does wonders for a human face parallel to the ground– hanging cheeks, extra chin fat, I’m probably apple read by now. Wait, ants don’t know what hair is, or chin fat…gosh I’m..ugh.

I squint as some strands of hair wisping across my face. Are they holding stuff? Wait, no, maybe that’s part of their face. Actually, no it looks kind of white-ish. Maybe it’s food for their queen. Does their queen work? Nope, she’s a queen. Duh Dana. She’s probably somewhere underground through one of these cracks sitting on a rock chair with her pet aphid lounging away with food surrounding her to last a lifetime. Wow, that sounds awesome. Wait… nevermind. Their food probably.. sucks.

I’m compelled to squat down to get a better look at them when I have a flashback.
I’m me 12 years ago with a bag of doritos in hand. I munch away as I watch an ant hill as close as possible.
I look like a frog, hopping small steps over to follow a crowd of ants I declared favorable.
I’d throw down a dorito over a pile of huge ants and sit it out as if there was a Pokemon marathon going on.
I’d wait, knowing something was bound to happen. This excited me to no end.
They all gathered around the triangle piece of cheddar-starch and began to break off little pieces starting from the edges. I always wondered how long it would take for them to break it all down.
I would laugh from time to time and look at them with fascinated eyes as if I haven’t seen something more remarkable.
I miss that feeling–being amazed by something so simple, so frivolous, when there seemed to be more to everything possible. The picture fades, I’m 18 again–less limber, less happy, and definitely less simple-minded.

I’m still standing in place.
The temptation to pace is gone, my eyes are focused on the ground now.
The ants trail around with a system that i can’t figure out. Beyond the end of the sidewalk are autumn leaves tossed in cigarettes; they’re all dry, browning, and lifeless.

My eyes are on the ants again–so alive and quick. I wonder if they ever think much about what they’re doing, where they’re heading.

Another flashback. It was a scene from a movie I got for my 10th birthday. A Bug’s Life.

They’re all collecting grains in a condensed, organized line and throwing it on a leaf-plate for the grasshoppers.
One ant(they were all colored a pastel purple or blue, which is so unrealistic) hummed along with his head up high until an autumn leaf came soaring down. It swayed for a while and finally swooped down, landing right in front of the ant’s path. He was devastated, his expression-as if his life was over now- was the expression of a helpless old man who had suddenly forgotten where he lived. He instantly yelled, “I’m lost!” as the line behind him backed up and they all went frantic, discussing what they should do.

Two ants who were supervising the line come back to calm them down. I still remember their somewhat arrogant yet soothing tone. “Relax, relax. We are trained professionals. Now we are going to walk around the leaf.”
The other ant holds his grain tightly in disbelief, “Around the leaf? I don’t think that’s going to work.”
It continues with the two supervisors literally taking him step by step around the leaf(which he avoided as if it would bite may I add) and the line was eventually recovered.

Now of course, for those of you who have watched this movie, it’s hilarious. Their way of thinking–for a leaf to scare them like that–well, it’s amusing. If those helpers weren’t there to tell the ants otherwise, they would have stood there forever probably.

Which brings me back to the real ants. The wind blew a scrunched up leaf-star towards my foot.
It was as if the wind had handed it to me.
I couldn’t hold back a smile and I lifted/kicked the leaf towards the ant’s trail. I positioned it away from the bigger cracks where they were just walking.
I felt 6 or 7 again. I stood there, with new anticipation, hoping something amazing would happen.
I hypothesized weakly, figuring that they would just go under and through the leaf– that Pixar had animated them wrongly.

Well, I was wrong. Ants continued to go under the leaf, some clustered around the “entrance” and others found their way out on the other side(or maybe their way in. I’m not sure, they all looked the same to me).
It became all too confusing and the excitement faded. The leaf had been in their way for about a minute now.
I decided to save them from the trouble I caused and kicked off the leaf every so gently and quickly.

To my surprise, about 50 ants had compiled under that one tiny leaf. They huddled like the migrating male penguins during their long and frightening winter. For some reason, this struck me as endearing. It was nothing like how I imagined it could be actually. As I lifted the darkness away from them, they were instantly lost in a mass disarray of other lost ants and direction. They all swam around in that same circle like a school of sardines until they realized they had been standing in a very familiar place. They instantly scattered, heading back to work or wherever they were coming from.

When I was a kid, I thought they were just funny in a curious sort of way. They were different from me, everybody was. For such little guys, they could carry so much, and as much as others were disgusted by them, I was the girl who hopped over every avoidable ant hill on the way home from school. First of all, I didn’t want them climbing up my shoes, and more importantly; I strangely felt like they shouldn’t be disturbed.

This all happened within 2 minutes. After I kicked the leaf off above their heads, I immediately thought of me, about us.
There I was, thinking to myself how lucky they should be that they didn’t need to deal with the trivialities and complexities of life. They don’t need to think about what’s coming or where they need to stand. It seemed perfect for a minute. But within the same minute, I realized it’s just the same for us as it is for them. People are put in the dark all the time and they’re left to feel hopeless, alone–when they actually do know actually where they are standing in the end.

In the end, you can laugh at yourself, at this world because you know by then how trivial your biggest problem sounded like when it hovered over your every move. It was as if you were in a room full of resources, but you only had a candle to guide your way. You laugh thinking back on it, because you could have just turned on the lights instead on running around in the dark! And every now and then, I’m going to fall into another “life’s so dull, it’s out to get me, I’m stuck” slumber and I’m going to want to escape it all just like anybody else would. I’m going  to want to find the reasons as to why I need to deal with this and why I’m here in this very position. I’ll be running in circles under this leaf-like world wondering where my exit is when all I needed to do was wait a little longer or see a little more clearly. And that’s how it is. We’re all just one in the same, not knowing how ridiculously similar we really are.

All the same.