The Mundane Living

Through the course of a day, my daily routine consists of this: I wake up, do my morning routine, get ready for school, and learn. It’s a bit bland, but it’s a life.

Of course, there are more things in my life beyond this. I belong to clubs, I read, I write, I cook—I can perform many human functions that my society deems normal, but the one thing I can’t do…is cry. It should be simple, the releasing of salt water from one’s tear ducts, but for me, it isn’t. I can tear up, feel the crystalline drops pool on the edges of my eyelids and cling to the fringe of my eyelashes, but that’s it. It’s all I can do. Crying is a struggle, emotions, a waste. Ironic that I would cry so readily as a child.

Looking back on my life, I realize things that only come with age. Like how I should’ve realized earlier that my family would never be like what the television portrayed. My father would never change and my mother would always be blind and contradicting when I needed her most. I see now that my family is no Brady Bunch—no family is like that—but I can see clearly that my parents will never comfort me when I need them to, will never listen to my pains, let me act my age. I can see it as clearly as the sun setting on the horizon. My parents have failed me. They can only provide material comfort.

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I am what “normal” people would call insane. I talk to myself, I rarely show emotion in front of people, I never dress in bright colors, and I’m suicidal. I am different. Different from those faces I see on the television, in magazine ads, on the street. The ones with happy smiles and actually mean it, but what is normal anyway? According to society, a normal person is someone that strives for the betterment of themselves; someone who is physically fit, mentally strong, and has a love for themselves, only allowing themselves small moments of pity to become stronger, but there’s nobody like that. That image of normal is a lie. They say normal people always try to better themselves and succeed, but what about other people? What if you can’t do that? What if you do want to better yourself, but don’t want to try any more in fear of further failure?

Our society is built upon fables. People tell their children all the time that if someone is having troubles, they shouldn’t laugh, but try to help them. An awkward child falls in the playground and only a child picks them up, but as we grow older, it changes. The awkward child falls once more, but this time, there is no friend to pick them up, only a crowd of onlookers pointing and laughing as they cry.

Normalcy is a plague upon the world. Society constricts people to fit a certain mold and we spend an eternity trying to reach it, ostracizing the people we leave behind. The people that are “different,” but how are we different? We’re both humans, we are both imperfect, we both want love at one time in our lives or another, so how are we different? Just because I talk to myself? Who better to talk to? I don’t show my emotions? Why share my treasures with people who couldn’t care less? Bright colors? Why should I lie about how I feel? Suicide…

Suicide is a bit tricky. It’s not that I want to die, but I’m tired of living. People who look to suicide are people for whom living has become a chore. Every day causes fatigue and a tiredness that sinks deeper than the bones and further than the soul. It’s a point where you can’t find joy in anything, but you want to. People always seem to ignore that point, the desire. You want to change, but you can’t.

Suicide is a turn towards weakness—I will admit that, but what are we if not weak? Not selfish? To be human is to be flawed. We steal, lie, cheat, we have insatiable urges—always wanting more because it’s not enough, and selfish because we want it all to ourselves. We want money, we want fame—we want love. Nothing will satisfy us until we gain it all.

These observations are like that of a God. Watching from somewhere hidden, somewhere far away, where prying eyes cannot see and propaganda cannot pollute. Watching from behind a window, I look out to see a place of smiling faces, of naked women and men, of violence and constraint. It’s a society that would shun me, a people that would not understand me—a world to which I don’t belong, and I close the curtain and turn my back, for just as they turn their back, I turn mine on them. I refuse to be normal if it means I have to throw away what makes me human—if I have to sacrifice my originality and scorn what makes my life worth living.

And as I sit here before my computer, typing this, I pray to a God I do not know will hear me and hope for a reprieve from this mundane living.