constants

It's weird that something can simultaneous hurt you yet offer a huge sense of relief.

Imagine an 18 year old skinny tall Asian girl, sitting on the floor of her white bedroom in Fremont, California, legs spread-eagled, journal in between, her hands scrawling furiously. It was a warm and sunny Saturday as good as any to share with family and friends and she was sitting at home busying herself with whatever, just like how she spent every other weekend.

I didn't go out with friends, nor did I desired to. Socializing in high school consisted of inefficient foot loops around the dingy local mall and hard work. Everyone needed confirmation that their jokes were funny, reassurance that their issues will be resolved, justification to go on and on about their lives when in truth people [by that I mean me] usually never cared and would immediately dismiss these "intimate" details as soon as the page turned onto a new day. And when friends turned the table and asked me about myself, well-intentioned to say the least, I always found it probing. I shared my personal thoughts with no one, I shared my secrets with no one. I've never had a best friend, never even had friends who could overcome the challenges of being friends with a girl who moved every two years or so who was indeed distant and closed off. I was a great acquaintance and the shittiest of best friends. Unsurprisingly, in the end the only companions I had on this cliched little journey called life was the white pages of my journal and my own damn self.

I won't pretend I was a fucked up child with a fucked up childhood. I had hardships yes, but I had everything I needed provided for me and all the love in the world from my dearest parents. I just had walls the height of sequoias around my heart and my soul reinforced with enough weaponry to stir talks of international intervention if my mind were a declared nation on this crazy Earth.

I was a selfish child. I looked out for myself, I took care of myself, I mainly thought of just myself. Getting through life was a task that needed to be done and I wanted more than anything else to skip straight to the end when I had everything figured out.

The end when I wasn't looking for whatever it is I was missing. Wanting whatever it is I didn't know I needed. Struggling to feel included or fulfilled or even motivated at all. Life up to that point was just a string of achievements to put on a sash and drape over my parents and I had no idea what I wanted except maybe to find out why everyone else got to go on with people by their sides and I was inexplicably always alone.