Not an introduction
I don’t believe in introductions. Nor do I intend to write to be witty or to be eloquent or to seem intellectual in a oh-but-I-thought-everyone-would-understand-my-allusions sort of way. I honestly consider most who blog about themselves and their mundane lives pretentious members of the same breed as those who twitter about their lunch. Unless you managed to find a mint-chocolate-chip-ice-cream-tiramisu cake with dark chocolate mouse and whipped cream, why should anyone care?
And yes, thank you, I realize my own hypocrisy. It’s just one of many faults.
But I write to be honest, because to be perfectly honest, I’m a terrible liar. I couldn’t tell the truth to save my life— not aloud. There is a reason but if I tried to describe it now, I’d probably exaggerate and that would eradicate the entire point of this blog. But sometimes, I can write the truth about myself. And it’s not as if anyone would read this so it hardly matters what I say.
Like I said, I’ve never said this out loud. I had a chance to, once, and I couldn’t. It’s taboo.
I have a theory: No one really wants to hear about failure, not even friends. It’s difficult, nearly impossible to truth emphasize and even if you could, it’d take far too much emotional energy to regularly engage in. It’s easy to be a fair weather friend, to celebrate success, not because it’s happy but because there’s a set vocabulary for that. Congratulations! I’m so happy for you! Various creative and maybe even personal inventions conveying essentially the same message!
But with failure, there’s nothing to say. You could say that you’re sorry, but chances are that you’re not really because it’s not your failure. But even if you were, what does that mean? Someone being sorry doesn’t make a dent in the true issue if it were one of any importance at all. And as for comforting and consoling? All that serves to do is reconstruct those comfortable walls so we can go on pretending that the world works out for the best, that even when we fail, we’re still great people in every way.
But some walls need to be torn down. Let’s face it— most people aren’t great. Most people aren’t brilliant or talented or charismatic or strong or brave or even special. But those who are tend to group together and form these bubbles of reality where they tell each other how great they are and believe it, too. And when it doesn’t work out, you’re left standing on the outskirts, disappointed in yourself and feeling selfish for having sullied the perfection of the idealistic bubble.
But most people are mediocre, gravitating towards the mean. But whenever we think of the standard deviation bell curve, we always imagine ourselves at its far right end, its gifted extreme. But someone has to fill that ample middle.
It’s not a comfortable truth because it doesn’t fit in with the way the world is supposed to be— everyone in their place, complacent and accomplished in their own way. Hard work bridging any obstacle endowed at birth. Equality and contentment filling the great divide.
But my whole life has been spent confronting that truth. I’m not exceptional in any way but somehow, somewhere along the way, I was naïve enough to believe that it was possible to claw my way to the far end of the bell curve. Somehow, I ended up the impudence to want things I have no right wanting, to dream things I don’t deserve. But I don’t believe in moving forward the goalposts, in crafting an easy way out, in winning a watered-down victory.
I have no one to blame but myself.
K, I lied. I have considered killing myself. Or at the very least hurting myself. The first time was in eighth grade when I dug my nails into my wrist so hard it bled. And it hurt. But it reminds me that I don’t deserve good things. I used to practice violin when I was eight years old and when I just couldn’t get that stupid Gavotte right, my mother would hit me. In correlation but perhaps not causation, I learned to punish myself. Sometimes, I ram myself against stucco walls until my breathing calms and physical hurt overwhelms all else. I’ve considered ramming my head against that wall or just taking a couple handfuls of painkillers, but I’ve never had that bravery.
I was thinking during H’s Rachmaninoff that maybe I could do it this time. Over spring break. Quiet and comfortable, hovering in that moment of truly deep sleep. Because sometimes, in my dreams, I wish that I would never wake up.
Don’t bother being surprised. You should have realized by now that I have no interest in being mediocre, falling at the center of the bell curve. I don’t want to go to UCLA and be a run-of-the-mill general practitioner or patent lawyer or whatever it the career of the moment may be. If I can’t be extraordinary, then I don’t want to be anything at all.
This is the part where you call me elitist and prideful. So read carefully: I suck. I know it, I believe it, and I don’t pretend to be anything more. My only act of pride was to be ambitious and, for a rare silly little moment, to believe that I could be everything I wanted. And for the record, I’m not saying that it’s wrong or it’s a failure for anyone to live the life I would hate to have. That’s subjective. This is a personal choice, one that I made a long time ago. And I’m just starting to realize its consequences.
Just what is that I want? I have this gleaming dream of sophistication and achievement and most of all, validation. I dream that I could stand before a crowd one day and be heard. I dream that I could write something that infiltrates just one mind, one heart. I dream that I could know, with absolute, objective certainty, that I am good at something. That the broken road was leading somewhere I could be proud of without the constant doubts that wake me in a cold sweat at three in the morning. That everything I sacrificed was worth it.
It’s stupid, and idealistic, I know. But I promised myself honesty and there it is.
Some days, I wake up and I try to have faith that I’ll get there someday. That somehow, I’ll land in a place with people who will intrigue and inspire me, where I’ll find something worthwhile about myself, and see what I’m meant to be. But some days, I don’t think I’m meant to be anything at all. Some days, I can’t see a road ahead.
Some days, I think there isn’t meant to be one.
