So What? (Spetember 18,2007)

So What?
By: Maria Reylan M. Garcia

I stared at the mirror. I pity its unfortunate fate of coming across reflecting an image that only a mother could love. I was pulled into a vacuum of blank thoughts, that when reality zapped me back, I was thankful enough that the mirror hadn’t broken into pieces. I guess I don’t need seven years of bad luck, I already have a full lifetime of it to enjoy. A habit, or seems to be just part of my unique personality to always go against the wave. But after every bold venture, here we are, still stuck with barrels of despair and depression both getting worse with age. While each of my completely normal and non-deviant peer group are getting their hair ironed or curled, here I am again still stuck with a hairstyle only the 1950’s could appreciate. While each of those cool crowd are gathering every night in their super cool clubs partying and getting in touch with their social life, here I am, it’s just me and my computer. Sometimes, I’d like to just crack open my nutshell. I know that I want to and could be what I desire to become, but something is holding me back.

Consider me guilty as accused, I envy those pretty girls, whom every head turns back, whom every eye would take a second look. I always would wonder why they could fashion themselves with attitude and grandeur. Those teen fashion magazines would carelessly tell a desperate dork like me, how easy it is to slip on a doll shoes with style, or how simple it is to ramp around with an above the knee bohemian skirt. But, no, it isn’t that simple. I’d rather take on deriving thousands of theoretical formulas for the almost impossible chemical reactions. The sine and tangent function of a geometric circle can’t help in my completely wandering questions.

Although at times, some people may accuse me of being such a party popper and would sometimes say I’m a thumb close to being a certified nerd, those parties I popped were the same things I would want to have experienced. Then, came those moments of, why is it she has everything while I’m a loser. She’s pretty, rich, sociable, girlfriend material and smart while I’m just a simple amateur scribbler. Regarding that the stage of self belittlement has crossed the street enters the state of self-righteousness bobbing up and down of my rationality. Because I feel so small, I wouldn’t want people to keep me smaller so I’ll find all means to deflate those big people to my size, blowing off the helium out of them. I start to find the negatives in people I feel jealous of, with the hope of pushing myself up to regaining self-worth.

Funny, how I unconsciously would avoid but end up in the same porridge, smelling foul, looking rotten, tasting sour and being crap. I was too far sighted that I missed those things right in front of me. Those things that were popping and yelping for my attention but I refuse to recognize, all because my attention was on mimicking and dreaming of the unknown. That is man’s primary sickness, a fatal disease, which I would name as ignorance. A love desperado would explain the scenario quite remarkably. He goes finding for the perfect her, but the perfect her refuses him and even kicks him off. And, there exists this simple her who loves the desperado as he is as she listens to his every heartache with the perfect her. He ends up shouting to the world how messed up his life is and that nothing came upon his miserable life. The story ends with the simple her telling him, “what about me?”

Yes, what about me? All of the things I left astray and insignificant were silently screaming their lungs out for me to at least consider their purpose. What about me? The people who love me without me loving them back shouts out the very same line. The struggling loser in me who I considered to be just a writer cries out the very same whim. The little things that were stomped by those blinding big ones screech out the very same break. I reached for the stars that I didn’t get to see how beautiful the black sky was. Not knowing that, it was the black sky that made the twinkling stars shine to their brightest.

They may wear the coolest clothes, have all the “it”, walk all the model like walks, all the cutest guys chasing after them, a hair fresh from a salon, a skin fresh from spa, a lunch worth thousands of pesos, for all I care, so what? They don’t have what I have. What I have and what I am is better, now that I know better. I guess they’ll never get to hear corny praises from friends who say how suited a 200-peso worth of blouse is on me. I guess they’ll never get to feel the vibrating echoes of laughter inside the comfort room as I jokingly do a monologue of how a tractor could comb my hair flat. I guess they’ll never get to enjoy a budgeted value meal lunch with my family after a Sunday’s mass. I guess they’ll never get to experience these simple things. For those, I pity them and gone thankful for what I have and had all along.

I looked at my reflection at the mirror; I still wish to be like those pretty girls. But, at the same time I refuse to deny my self and what I have. Insecurity, the condition common to most teenagers the cooler crowd calls as losers. But I presume, this insecurity won’t come out if the so called loser won’t consider himself as one. Take note that even if the audience would applaud for a celebrity, the celebrity is just one puny little figure, and the audience is a bombardment of silhouettes. She’s just one and we’re a hundred. Decipher the austere logic. I can write articles that those several pretty girls would pay millions for. I have a decent set of scores that several cooler dudes would go nuts for.

It’s not just me. It’s not just my own drama. They might be staring at an invisible mirror, having their own insecurities and what ifs. But, the key is to be happy with yourself, and see those things that you already have and treasure them as if it would be stolen away from you for tomorrow.

A thousand-peso hotel lunch?
So what?
I’ve feasted on a 30 pesos lunch and I’m still full.