Whatever comes to mind.
Art : LEGACY.
By Sakuan.
Whatever comes to mind this week.
Today, I woke up feeling like a million bucks; it feels good to start the day this way. Yesterday was an interesting day—nothing was going my way until suddenly everything did, and I’m grateful for that. I assume people know what to do in those kinds of situations—maybe they rejoice, maybe they do something special to make themselves feel better, but not me. I sit in the moment and romanticize what my life could have been if I had been successful at what I did. I know success doesn’t come easy; I know it takes time for many, and I also know it isn’t guaranteed. So why do I push so hard to achieve something that’s so rare? Well, it’s quite simple—if not this, then what? Sit around all day, just being a cog in the system while fulfilling someone else’s dreams and goals for my entire life? That doesn’t sound appealing to me, and I don’t know anyone who finds that satisfying. Maybe that’s my problem—I’m around people who are “go-getters.” Perhaps I need to be with others who think differently than me. But even then, as we already know, life itself is a complicated mess, and it’s our job to try and make sense of it all. Everything in life feels like a double-edged sword, but it all depends on your perspective. Some see things as good, while others see the same things as bad—societal views, personal views, objective, subjective—and so on. Life is such a mess that I enjoy trying to clean it up as I go, but some stains are hard to remove. Still, they don’t stop me—I just keep pushing. That’s all I know, raised by the sword and die by the sword I guess.
2.
I woke up feeling good again, and this time I don’t know why, but it isn’t bothering me because this is becoming a regular thing. When there’s something I need to avoid, I shift my mind elsewhere, and it soothes me. It calms me. I’m amazed by how much I love doing what I do. I just hope that one day it becomes meaningful to others, just as it is to me. I can only imagine what people do in their free time because what I do in mine satisfies me. Sometimes it feels wrong because there’s no way one person should have this much fun, but sometimes it gives me comfort. God knows I need it, considering the brain He blessed me with. If only I could find someone to share all these feelings with. This has become the story of my life. I don’t put myself out there because I feel, and I know, that I have nothing to offer, and it wouldn’t be fair to the other person. Sometimes I wonder if this is a normal feeling. I look at the “stats,” and a lot of people get divorced. If I didn’t look closely at why they divorce, I might conclude there’s no reason to get married, since many of them end badly. Some of these reasons make no sense to me. “I just wasn’t happy anymore.” Who made it a rule that you have to be happy all the time, Hollywood? Sometimes you clash with your parents, but you don’t just storm out never to be seen again. Since it’s family, you try to work it out. Why leave your children in a broken home over some vague reason of not being happy? What does “happy” even mean? You can’t have your cake and eat it too. A relationship involves sacrifices, and an attitude of “me, me, me” will never last in a relationship. Sometimes you have to think, “us, us, us.”
3.
Cultures vary from place to place, and some people experience culture shock from things that seem normal to others. This has happened to me before, and it's rare for me to get as shocked as I was yesterday.
I thought this was a big joke. Maybe there is always some truth in a joke, and this one made it so clear that I was at a loss for words. I saw it right in front of me, and I stared. Luckily, they were walking away from me so they couldn’t see me looking, but it was shocking. I always thought it was an exaggeration comedians said. I first heard it from a stand-up comedian; I don’t remember who exactly, but it was funny. I assumed it was one of those things that isn’t really true but sounds about right. Turns out, it was the truth, and I had the nose bleed seats to it yesterday. To me, it was a culture shock. Maybe it’s something only done in certain places and by specific people there. I don’t know why it would be a thing. I can come up with ideas about why it might be done, but even that doesn’t make it right in my eyes. I’d expect that behavior toward a pet or an animal, not a human. I’m still shocked by what I saw. Maybe it was all a dream—I wish. It was noon during one of my daily walks. The weather was beautiful and calm—neither too hot nor too cold, just right. As I was heading back, I saw two people: an overweight woman, probably around 300-something pounds, about five foot four inches tall, and a small child, maybe two or three years old. I guess they were out for a walk too. The small girl was on a leash.
4.
Tabitha.
She was kind to me, perfect for me, but there was one flaw—she lied a lot, which often got me into trouble. Still, I kept going back to her. Call me a hopeless romantic if you want, but I’ll tell you this about Tabitha: she always had my back. I don’t understand why I kept returning, but I did, and it felt right for me. I believed she was perfect, and no one could tell me otherwise. Times change, people change, but me and Tabitha never did—she kept lying, and I kept taking her back, lie after lie. She knew she was lying but couldn’t help it. She remembers her first lie vividly; it was heartbreaking, and the reason behind it was tragic too. Maybe because I was in love is why I felt it was tragic or maybe it truly was heartbreaking. She comes from a broken family—her dad’s been in jail since she was seven, and her mom was a deadbeat. Different men called what she called her mother home. Her grandparents didn’t want anything to do with her or her mom because of her first lie. She kept living without a care. She ran away from home a few times. Her mother didn’t care; in fact, she yelled at her and hit her, at least that’s what seven-year-old Tabitha remembers. She cries every time she tells this story, and I hold her tight, never letting go—knowing she could be lying. But that didn’t matter to me. All that mattered was that I was there for her, and there it is, maybe, just maybe she also understood that as she’s a liar I have the savior complex—I think I can save broken people. I am attracted to that. I didn’t care that she lied to me; all I cared about was trying to fix her. Deep down, knowing she could never truly be fixed, made me feel complete. You might call it love or delusion—I don’t know what to call it. All I know is that every romantic partner she ever had left her because of her lies, and every one of my romantic partners left me because I always tried to “fix’ them. Yet somehow, we’ve been glued together for the past fifteen years, with no thought of ever leaving, until death do us part—that’s what we decided to tattoo on our wrists.
5.
Bore.
Bore me with all you have; I cannot be stopped. I woke up today thinking about getting old. In a couple of months, I will reach the age most people dread. I have nothing to my name, nobody to my name, I am all alone—by myself, nobody to help me, nobody to tell me I am okay, nobody to share my thoughts with, nobody to wake up to. It’s just me in this life. Is that pathetic or just sad? I wish I had all these things. I am doing what I can to reach that place, but I can’t tackle everything at once. First, I have to get my life together before I can invite others in because that’s how I keep my sanity. Trust me, this is the only way I can avoid going crazy—don’t ask how I know; it has happened before, and that’s how I know. It wasn’t a pleasant ride; it was filled with pain and turmoil. Then I found something that kept me from jumping. That small change made life start to make sense. Like any normal person, I decided to chase more of what gave my life meaning. Here we are—alone now, but there’s a reason for that. For me to exist, I have to go through this right now. This is how the world has to work for me. I envy those with simple lives, those who wake up with a silver spoon—though only sometimes, especially when things are gloomier than usual. Sometimes, I also pity them because most likely they don’t have the fire in them that I have—to accomplish something new from scratch. And there’s just something about this thing they call “HUMBLE BEGINNINGS.” I see my life as something special. Legacy is what I am chasing. “And if it doesn’t happen?” Well, I guess I wouldn’t be here to see it, so it wouldn’t hurt—just like all those people whose works were discovered after they passed and they became legends long after they were gone. They had dreams of leaving a legacy, but they will never know they left one; only those alive now know.
By Nu Nazareth.
