I am someone who can find beauty in the strangest places. The bush outside that has gone away for the winter. All alone, with no leaves to keep it company during the long cold season. Oh, how sometimes I wish I could just hibernate through the winter. But then I find the beauty in the dark places and realize I would have missed the beauty if I were hibernating. I find the gray sky right before a storm to be the loveliest of things. When the dark clouds roll in; they seem like they will break any minute. But they hold on to those tears; competing with each other to see who can hold them longest. Sometimes, I feel that way, like I am about to break under society’s pressures, letting my tears finally flow.  But we can’t cry because society tells us that means we are weak. I don’t believe that at all. From birth, crying has been a sign of life. But we all just want to be numb. I believe that crying can be more beautiful than smiling. I find beauty in the oddest of places; but why then, I ask, do I find it so difficult most days to find beauty in myself?

Society tells us to be different; latently telling us to be the same. Brainwashing us to believe we are different, but we are all really just the same. I believe people try too hard. They are trying too hard to be the same. They are trying too hard to be different. Because being different really just means being the same. I try just to be myself, even under society’s pressures. If I like it, I wear it/eat it/listen to it/ read it. If it makes me feel something then it doesn’t matter if it makes me the same or different, because I am not here to live for someone else. I am here to live for myself and I try to feel as much as I can through the numbness.

Most people don’t want to be the wallflower, but I like being a wallflower. I like to take it all in, observing the little things that no one else would think to notice. I like to take these little things and ponder them later. They all make me feel, even the way the little flickers in the classroom makes me feel. I think wallflowers are beautiful people. We are often labeled as “shy,” but we are not shy at all. We are making connections with everything in the room that everyone else does not seem to even notice.  I feel things that I cannot describe. I get so excited, it’s as if lightning is striking my heart, a bolt of energy. So when the teacher asks, “what do you think about this?” I often cannot answer, for I do not think about certain things, I feel certain things. I believe those feelings are the most amazing things when words cannot describe them. I wish that I could make others feel the feelings I feel from the little things.

Every day I wake up, happy to have a brand new day. But sometimes I find it impossible to forget yesterday’s pain.  Everything makes me feel, and I often feel that I need to explain these feelings in words. So I go and I think about the way things feel so I can describe them later. So these painful feelings I get throughout the day I think about them. So people tell me I over-think, and maybe I do, but I believe if I don’t think about the bad things, I won’t think about the good things either. Sometimes, though, I wish that when I slept, I’d be able to forget about the thinking and feeling. Forget the pain and start with a fresh plate, like a newborn child.  But the pain helps us learn, so that wouldn’t be so helpful after all, would it be?

 I once heard a girl say “I’m always feeling all lonely for something I don’t know I’m lonely for. Do you know the feeling?” I took these words and I thought about how they made me feel. They made me feel less alone. I am not the only one who can be in a crowded room and be incredibly alone. Kim Culberston once said, “People think being alone makes you lonely, but I don't think that's true. Being surrounded by the wrong people is the loneliest thing in the world.”  I think that may be the purpose of life; to find what we are lonely for. To realize just because we are with people does not mean we are not alone.  And when I remember these words, I smile, because I know I am not alone; there are others who are searching for what they are lonely for.

I find pleasure in the simplest of things. The way the dog gets excited to see a toy she had forgotten for an hour. The way the air smells before it’s going to snow. The way his eyes look. Unlike any other blue. The way I find it so hard not to get lost in those blue eyes. He says he has nothing to hide, but those blue eyes tell his lies. He is hiding from himself; little tiny folded pieces of his soul that he has hidden in the back crevices of his mind. And when that boy cries, those blue eyes turn stormy gray. And his pupils begin to shrink, running from the world. When he holds my face up to the light with his hands, I wonder what those blue eyes see. And I love to watch those blue eyes as he stares off at the distant world. I wish to see what those blue eyes see. And sometimes in those moments, his eyes turn that stormy gray, showing the sorrow he hides. I love to watch as those blue eyes turn stormy gray if only for the slightest moment. I like to watch my dad play Amazing Grace on the bag pipes. How after my Uncle’s funeral, his eyes filled with tears every time. And watching my dad feel sorrow made me feel so relieved because he seems like a machine sometimes, without any emotion.  I often think about my aunt and how lonely her bed must feel late at night without her husband at her side.

I like to watch people put on a tough act to hide the pain, if only to fool themselves.  I find myself surrounding myself with these people, hoping to teach them to feel. I like the way the air smells right before a summer rain and I wonder if I’m the only one. I like to sit and watch people and think about what their lives might be like. I like that I enjoy these simple pleasures but sometimes I find them so hard to find. I like to think the world is a safe place but I’m terrified that it’s not. I like to notice people’s quirks. Like how my best friend only eats three noodles at a time. Or how that girl never finishes her full sandwich, leaving two bites at the end. And I wonder if anyone notices these things about me. Like how I always have to touch read when I hear a siren. Or how I wait exactly ten seconds between each bite of food. And I find these little quirks to be magical. I believe these quirks make up each and every one of us.

 People often say I think too much. I over analyze everything. They call me insane because the little bug in the room makes me feel more emotion than most people feel in a full day. And I think about these emotions and I try to find words to describe them. I like to take people’s words and poems and ponder how they make me feel, or how the author felt. I like to take everything and view it as a beautiful poem. And when I find words that make me feel I hold them forever. And people call me crazy because I always have a quote to describe every situation. They call me crazy because I think and I feel. These things do not make me crazy, these are the things that make me alive.