21.03.2022
in the morning the weather was once again below zero, so i found myself driving past the bus stop closest to my school and off into the distant edges of town and then back into the city centre, to the largest shopping mall where all the gaudily dressed teens playing truant congregate during those times of day.
D. (someone i begrudgingly call a friend) wanted me to do a favour for them yesterday but i had not checked the messaging app in the evening and thusly missed three separate times they tried to get through to me. in these times it is somewhat barbaric to turn off notifications. the world is pleasantly quiet and then you check your messages and find multiple individual inquiries and the bustling life of group chats that passed you by when you were disconnected. i never quite suffered FOMO. most often i find that things not worth missing out on occur very rarely.
“i am a rock, i am an island”. lately i find myself reminded of how i was in elementary school. out of touch, isolated, finding refuge in libraries, consuming books with eagerness and ease. this time, though, i choose this isolation and consciously work towards it. i turn off notifications, i don’t follow the new inside jokes developed on social media, i try not to let my environment influence me - i dont go outside on breaks to smoke, i don’t engage in deeper conversation, i study alone not asking for help nor showing any eagerness to give help. i find myself with the time and energy to start hobbies, commit more to old ones, and i finally restored my attention span to the point where scrolling through quick content feels unnatural and i can devour an interesting book in one sitting. the aloneness is good for me. i don’t see why i should divert my energy towards anything else.
i am, however, not free of regret for somehow finding my current environment this draining. i observe the people around me and notice connections appearing and being reinforced every day. two people who have been always arriving to class late together have started dating. the girl who has been practicing violin since early childhood is now often seen making small talk with the girl with astounding knowledge of russian literature and a mesmerising, deep voice that only speaks sophisticated Polish and the boy who committed almost every written historical event to memory. one of my closest friends has found a girlfriend who takes her to fancy restaurants and vernissages. there is a beauty in those connections. i stand at the peripheries of human sociability, chained to D., for whom i haven’t felt any real fondness for almost two years now.
the people i mentioned previously have beautiful connections because they are beautiful people. they have something to define them - a positive attribute, a skill. they know things and can do things, so they have what to talk about and bond over. i, knowing and having done very little in my life, have nothing to say.
those who have nothing to say also flock together. my last friend group formed in middle school, as an alliance of almost all the people who did not find anyone else to talk to after all the initial cliques had been formed. in the time since then, as every member of that group started to find something to day and sought a more meaningful life outside of it, the ties within loosened and eventually dissolved, with D. and I - the most useless people from said group - the last men standing. the red string becomes a chain. it had always been one. my connection with D. is not beautiful because neither of us has anything to say. i wish for better company but as of now, i do not deserve it.
my hypothesis is this: if i only manage to redefine myself, raze myself to the ground and rebuild myself on stronger foundations, if i remember to make myself interesting and skilled and knowledgeable, if i just have something - and not just anything - to say, i will be just like those beautiful people. but i cannot truly rebuild myself as long as outdated images of me exist in the minds of others. i'm too big of a people pleaser to say "no, i try to be someone else now". people scoff at change. either they deem it impossible, or they deem it especially impossible for the person trying to change. so i distance myself, let myself be forgotten, even disliked, and use this time and energy to work on myself. high school will be over soon. then i will have the freedom to be whoever i figure myself out to be.