04...
For someone who claims to be as emotionless as I am, I’m extremely soft. I don’t care much about many things. I’m stubbornly set at unflappable and almost aloof, where someone can say something offensive and I won’t even bat an eyelash. Where I can calmly consider the best course of action as I continue to walk normally while a drunk man starts chasing me out of nowhere in the night. Where I can smile at the strangers offering me a ride as they cruise down the street. Luckily, nothing horrible has happened to me yet... somehow.
Distancing myself to a certain degree comes naturally to me. But I’m cursed with a seemingly limitless amount of empathy, which is ridiculous. I think people that stress over trivial things are foolish, but I know that they are different from me. And what seems like nothing to me may be the world for them. Maybe it’s because I don’t have any feelings of my own.
I do kind things. So people mistake me for being kindhearted. But doing kind things costs me nothing but my time and maybe my energy. I don’t go out of my way, but if I see that I can do something small and insignificant that would make them happy? I have no qualms about doing it.
Because they’re different from me. Because people take care of me, even though I know I don’t deserve it. What people won’t do for others, they might do for me.
I intended on sleeping in, but I woke up to the sound of a grown woman crying. I’ve always kept my distance, so I could only sit upstairs and try to understand what was going on without showing my face. But she just cried without explanation. I stayed away because I didn’t want to make things awkward. Because if it were me, I wouldn’t want anyone else to see me. But she is different. Maybe I should have gone downstairs.
I know nothing about her, but I know she’s alone. Perhaps the stress of raising the child on her own had become too much for her to bear after her mother left to go back home. I wondered if she was just overwhelmed for the moment or if someone had broken her heart. I empathized because she seemed so perfect, so put together. I thought she was so very unlike me.
But I actually know very well how deceptive that kind of front can be.
















