Reflection

Who is that girl I see
Staring straight back at me?
Why is my reflection someone
I don't know?
Somehow I cannot hide who I am
Though I've tried
When will my reflection show
Who I am inside?
    "Reflection", Mulan

I've tried to write this post three times in the past couple of weeks.  It's taken on a new perspective in the last fifteen minutes.  This was my favorite song, and my 'go to' song when I was in early high school.  But now I can't help but be amazed at the shallowness of it.  And it's all because of this book. "The Perks of being a Wallflower." 

It all really begins yesterday.  I had spent an hour and a half looking at hair styles, because my hair had to go.  It was so split up that any time I left it straight it looked like straw.  Sarah and me decided that that was the perfect occasion to have that roommate weekend we'd talked about all year.  I also decided that I was going to cut my hair off in a style similar to Emma Watson, whom I love! Ever since I had the choice of how my hair looked, it's been long.  I love french braids, I love ponytails, I love long hair.  Mine just got to the point that it just did not look nice.  Depending on the ending result of my hair, we would see "Perks of being a Wallflower" or "Wreck-it Ralph."  "Perks" if I felt like Emma Watson, and "Ralph" if I was sad and needed some animated Disney.  I felt like Emma.

Now, this isn't my typical movie with fairy dust and smiling faces.  This is a deep movie.  It talked about drugs, sex, and a lot of words that just aren't in my vocabulary, though I am aware of their presence in this world.  This kid, Charlie, had something bad happen to him when he was really small.  Really bad. And he'd have these thoughts come back to him from it, though he didn't remember what had happened.  He didn't any friends, because his only one had committed suicide months prior to his first year of high school.  You just have to see it.  I know other readers have said it, and all the readers to come, but I really felt like Charlie.  I have felt like Charlie.  Charlie is a wallflower.  He sees things. He keeps quiet about them. And he understands. I've met very few people like that, but there is one person like that.  His name is Ethan Richie and he has been my best friend for 4 years, even though we haven't had a real conversation in about a year.  I think he's a wallflower too.  

I had to buy the book after I watched the movie.  I had to finish it.  I didn't put it down once.  Read it straight through.  And when I was done, I just sat there and held it to my forehead. Not thinking or feeling or moving.  There was no music playing, no Castle episode to watch.  There was nothing but the sound of our fan.  This is a random thought, but I also realized that I have never appreciated the sound of silence.  And why I'm so scared of it.  

I had really, really bad days in high school.  Some of those days I blocked out, and they'll come to revisit me sometimes when I have a moment to myself, or as I'm driving.  And I wonder about that person I was back then.  That Lindsay was so sure that she had things figured out and that what she wanted was right.  Three VCBC summers later, plus college, and now Lindsay knows that she knows nothing, and she's ok with that.  But no matter how bad the days were, I was always busy.  I always had something that I had to finish or people I had to see or places I had to go.  Then when college came, I had such a new world I was trust into.  People acted so stupid.  I couldn't stand it.  Charlie is like that.  He watches people, and he understands them.  He can look at someone and see that there's more to them than the surfaces; the reflections. He comments on different people all through the book.  Why they drink.  Why they hit their children.  I do that.  I've always had a wild imagination, and I've never really been able to explain it until today.  It's not the artistic imagination I always think I should have, though I feel it when I paint a person's face.  I saw all those kids my first semester at Simpson, and couldn't help but wonder what it would take to be like them.  What would have to happen to me to think that that was the only way to be happy.  The only way not to feel anymore.  I couldn't understand it for a very long time.  I thought about the one guy that talked to me in the music department, and I always wondered why he did it.  I wondered what was going to happen when he left school and if he'd make it big.  He would talk about his worship band he was in, but I knew he wasn't with God.  He said he was, but I knew he wasn't.  That reminds me, he never gave me back my first copy of "Crazy Love." I hope he's read it by now.  I rarely delete people on Facebook, and he's no exception.  He's engaged, and when I see his name pop up, I wonder if he decided to grow up.  He was immature when I met him, and not in a Disney way either.  There were other people too, that as I look at pictures of them, I wonder if I could have made a difference if I had stayed.  My old roommate had so many things that she was dealing with.  She'd pretend it was just water over the bridge, but I could tell.  She didn't want to have to feel the truth.  She was scared.  I took her to Cornerstone church a couple of Sundays, and we'd have great conversations, but she would never get to a point where she could let go of the box she wanted religion in.  She was scared of something she can't control.  And as I grew to hate Simpson, I searched for a new place, where people wouldn't be so screwed up.  I couldn't live among them anymore.  Their sadness affected me, and made me miss my fun times with people that were screwed up, yes, but less so. In a manageable way. I think my first night at USF is when I really started.  My keycard wasn't working so I got in as much of my stuff as I could.  Apparently that doesn't include your phone, journal, or bible.  So I sat there on the cold tile, wrapped up in a blanket, completely and utterly alone.  Scariest night of my life.  I just cried and cried and prayed.  I met a few people, but once I got back to my room, I was alone again.  It became my safety net.  I could hide in there. I didn't want anyone to see this version of me.  And I couldn't really find myself back.  That's when I turned to stories.  

       "I don't know if you've ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. 

-Charlie"

I've always been an avid reader.  I won a reward in middle school for the most pages read. 7,776.  I still remember the number.  I would have won the most books too, but Emily had read 8 chapter books, and I was reading massive novels.  I was not a happy eighth grader.  But in college those books had a purpose.  Any spare moment I was reading, or watching a movie, or surfing youtube.  Anything with a story that wasn't my own.  Mine wasn't going anywhere.  Harry Potter fanfiction was the worst.  If you've never looked those fan sites up before... do and don't.  That first freshman semester wasn't absolutely horrible, but my sophomore year was.  And it didn't help that I was in terrible pain from my ear 40% of the time, but I hid better than I ever had in my life.  I read such trash.  The fans weren't getting the characters right at all, but I still read it, because it had nothing do to with financial aid, the ER, meeting new people, or deadlines.  Now, the 'author' Northumbrian is fantastic, and I have a few favorites that I first found when I was in 8th grade, but it got to a bad bad point.  When I just could not take one more pathetic scene where Harry cries all over Ginny, I'd turn to my Tamora Pierce books, with their larger than life heroines. I'd watch movies I'd always said I wanted to watch but never did.  I always had some kind of story to turn to.  I had Taylor Swift music, I had musical music.  Which really are just stories set to music.  Anything to have something to block out the silence. The loud that had come from having friends had been muted, and I couldn't find a true replacement.  I still haven't found a permanent one, and I don't think I ever will.  One of them has deleted me off of Facebook in just this past week.  If I had allowed myself to feel, I would have cried, but there's so many things that would be worse.  Thank you, VCBC, for not allowing iPods.  To let me really reflect and grow.  

I walked over to the hill where we used to go and sled. There were a lot of little kids there. I watched them flying. Doing jumps and having races. And I thought that all those little kids are going to grow up someday. And all of those little kids are going to do the things that we do. And they will all kiss someone someday. But for now, sledding is enough. I think it would be great if sledding were always enough, but it isn't. -Charlie

I still see other people's lives before my own.  A lady in Hobby Lobby was rather snappy at me, and I was kinda terrified of her, but then I can't help but wonder what makes her the way she is.  Two of the men in the frame shop are gay, and I can't help but wonder how different their lives are.  One of them is roughly in his late 60's and the other in his 20's.  In the present climate, I can't help but wonder if one of them had it better off.  How do they handle other people? How did their parents react? Why are they the way they are? John is such a nice guy.  He's invited me to put my art in a show in a couple weeks.  I want to know why his art shows what it does.  I want to know why.  I understand.   I understood when my best friend was crying in front of the Lodge from a scrapped up heart.  I understood when she just needed to be alone and color.  To not feel anything for a moment.  Or just to think more clearly.  I have both effects happen when I color. I understood when my favorite person in the whole world was crying into my shoulder because she realized she had never done anything in return.  And I didn't want anything in return.  I think about ex boyfriends.  Not in a 'i miss you' sense, but in a 'i wonder what will happen to you now'.  The one I silently thank for teaching me that not everyone in the world is truthful, and for giving me a subject that I am passionate about teaching young women, and for making me so mad that I had to prove to myself that I could paint detail and that I could have a voice made for solos.  The other I thank for showing me that you can actually enjoy being in a relationship, no matter how short it was.  I wonder about the first boy, and if he talks to other girls about me like he talked about his first girls.  I wonder if they'll always feel like they're compared to the last one.  Because of those talks I will never ever go back to having blonde hair.  I wonder about the second, and I hope he's feeling appreciated now.  I don't think he ever felt appreciated by anyone before.  I saw the boys not giving him the call when they were out playing basketball.  I knew of the comments people said about him.  But he wasn't like that at all.  I see that worn out woman that doesn't know why she does what she does.  I see her and think that she doesn't have much hope left.  That's what I see, though if you were to talk to her she would deny it and say she's just fine.  I see the man starting to turn out just like his father, and hating it.  He feels like the world is against him, but yet loves his family so much.  The combination is what gets him in trouble.  I see that boy that has no self esteem, and will not be himself.  Completely himself.  He gets mad at the world for the troubles he's been given, but can't look past it to see that others might need him more than he realizes.  I saw the tears in my favorite track star's eyes, but knew she did not want to talk, for risk of crying more. I saw the smile as the cover up that it was.  My mom's been in a bad way for the last few weeks.  When I went home for Fall Break she was limping so bad and had to hold onto the counters to walk through the kitchen.  I couldn't let go of that image for day afterword.  I had to be at Hobby Lobby that next Tuesday for truck day, and that moment just stands out vividly in my memory.  I was stocking stamps, and this elderly couple comes by, the husband pushing the wife in a wheel chair.  They had what had to be their grandson walking along side.  And I almost burst into tears right in the middle of my shift.  Because I couldn't help but see my parents in that image, and my mind just spun.  How disastrous that would be.  Then what would they do without my sister home... Charlie and me have a lot in common.  His bad stuff isn't my bad stuff, but we understand that.  My favorite thing he says, at the end of the book, is this: 

   

                   “I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won't tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn't change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have.”

                  

I still turn to stories, which I think is why I'm so reflective right now, in the silence.  When it's quiet you really can think truer than you can with music.  At least in this moment I can, right now.  I'm wondering about the word infinite.  In the book, Charlie said that in this moment, they were infinite.  Have you ever felt those moments? Those are the moments you look back on when you want to feel happy again, but many times they just make you sad because you know their gone. 

And while I had this rough idea in my head before, this book has defined my next print for class.  I was going to tell you about it, but now I think I won't.  I've explained it to Katie and my mom, but Katie wasn't there for the black, and my mom doesn't think I should include any of the black.  I'm not going to explain that sentence.  Isn't that what art is all about? 

“And in that moment, I swear we were                           
       infinite <3”