Wallflower

Sometimes life fades into a time-ticking, tortuous monotony, as if all the colour has been bleached into film noir. I think about the opening scene from American Beauty, how the life of Lester Burnham looks as bland as stale leftovers. “In less than a year, I’ll be dead. In a way, I’m dead already.”

I mean, I’m technically happy. As much as a person can be with a past to repress and accompanied unresolved issues. I have friends who at least give a shit, even if I don’t have a family who does. I’m a little late to the finish line than the people around me, no mortgage for my own place lined up for a good decade, with a quarter-life crisis career switch and lack of safety nets to thank for that. But fuck am I grateful for my physical health and opportunities everyday.

Even so, the days in between work and placement feel like the filler scenes of a movie, except much less deserving of box office revenue. It’s not only that I love work and on-road placement, which I absolutely do. It’s just that when I’m there, the things I do matter. People, though few in number, look forward to seeing me. And I can say with certainty I make a difference to the people around me. I’m present in the moment instead off in the clouds due to a genetic predisposition towards perpetual boredom.

Compare that to my days off where I just sort of exist. Am I crazy? Am I stupid, or maybe narcissistic to think like this? It’s hard to tell, but everyone seems to belong so much better than I do. Everyone seems to blend in a lot better, whereas I’m exhausted with the effort of masking. Sometimes I feel like a wallflower, invisible, forgettable, and that I could disappear and my absence would leave not a mark nor trace.

Of course, it’s one of those feelings you can’t reveal to anyone, especially happy, stable people. I don’t unreasonably expect anyone to have a response other than closed sympathy at best and indifference at worst. I get it, I really do. People have their own fucking lives and problems, and if someone is down they need to take ownership of that. The old adage of leading a horse to water but being unable to force it to drink. I don’t know where to ask for help, what help looks like for me, or whether I would even accept it. It’s the way it is. And I do believe it’ll pass, and in the meantime I can continue to count my lucky stars for the good moments and tolerate the rest.

On rare occasions, I feel a real connection to someone, where I feel present and fully myself. But it flies by like a passing train an arm’s reach away. It disappears like a bird into the treetops, into the sky. I always miss them and think about them, and wonder if I imagined it all along. If I imagined that I could possibly mean as much to other people, who have loving families and support networks and emergency contacts that aren’t their housemate, as they mean to me.