Good Or Bad, I Was One Of The Ones

I have always wondered what it would be like to be strong.
But what does it mean to be strong?
What does it mean to have strength?
Or to be capable?

Is this no different from exposing your weaknesses?
Is it the same as acknowledging them and continuing just the same?
I think about this.

I know men who can lift heavy things. They can break other people with their hands. They can run fast. They can stand tall. They can move mountains if you ask them to. And yet, I have seen them brought to their knees.
Weaker than a newborn.

I often talk about the sections in the school’s cafeteria. I talk about the different tables and the different people and the different echelons of popularity. I knew where the cool kids sat. I knew where the pretty ones sat.

I have always noticed that some people can walk in a room and for whatever the reason may be, everyone takes notice.
Everything they say is either funny or perfect.
And this seems effortless for them.
Of course, I know this is only a concept in my head.
I know this is not true.
At the same time, I have always noticed when someone like this can walk on the scene, and everybody turns their way.
I have never been that one..

I used to lose myself in the comparison with others. I saw no glimmer in my brilliance and there was no substance to my genius, —and therefore, I always assumed that I was destined to be one of the unseen or unheard and typically unnoticed.
In the descriptions of good or bad or ugly and beautiful, I swore there was nothing worse than being perfectly medium or mediocre at best.

I always talk about the different side of my junior high school’s cafeteria and how the pretty or the athletes sat on one side and the bad kids, or the crazy ones sat on the other.
There was also the middle, which was the unknown or the otherwise faceless people who were never remembered or never invited, never included or welcomed, and they were the socially vacant ones, never to be thought of or valued as mentionable—that is, of course, unless they encountered a social humiliation, in one way or another. Like, say, the girl who got twisted and tormented by the rumor factory because it was said that she was sent to an emergency room for having a frozen hot dog stuck in her womanly area.
Was this true?
No one thinks so (now)
But had this not been said, she would have been otherwise invisible to everyone else in the school.
And I am sure, the young girl would rather she wore the cloak of invisibility over the humiliation she felt.

No one wants to be picked on
No one wants to be seen as diseased or worthless.
No one wants to be weak either or ugly.
At the same time, no one wants to believe that they are just a ghost and if they said nothing, no one would say anything to them.

I spent years, trying to fit.
But the pieces to my puzzle never coincided or fit right with the world around me.

My biggest fear was that this was me.
This is my fault.
I was afraid that I would always be “that one” who was never worthy of an invitation.
And still, I can relate to these things.
I remember a girl heard that I liked her.
And she reacted is I were a disease.
As if I were gross . . .
I remember how stupid I felt
Why did I say anything?
Why did I open my mouth?

I can relate to the fears and the anxieties that come with the positions in the crowd.
And do you know what?
One would think this ends when we leave high school, —or like the famous line reads in Corinthians, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child. I understood as a child. I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
And one would think that the power of the crowd or the needs of the flock would be put away too.
But I see the huddles and the cliques and the power-trips. I see the different levels of social popularity. I see the contrast between the favorites and the undesirables, and yes, I still see the separations in the crowd.
And yes.
This is all alive and well in the so-called adult world.
I guess too many of us failed to put away our childish things.

Maybe I am not an adult at all.
Maybe I am still, “that one” who is too afraid to not be seen or valued.
Maybe I am still “that one,” looking to be acknowledged or to be counted ad included.

Maybe I am still that boy who could not figure out why people refuse to play fair, or share, or hold hands when we try to cross the street.

Maybe it is true what I heard, and yes; the reason our fingers spread is so that special hands can spread their fingers too and weave them into ours.

It is not beyond me to flip, or lose my mind, or lose my place and therefore, it is not beyond me to act irrationally or to “lose my shit!” so-to speak.

I am not sure what it means to be strong.
Yet, I know it takes strength for me to stand and get up, and get out of bed in the morning.
I do not know what it means to be tough.
But I know that life can be tough and sometimes, the toughest thing we can do is make it through the day.
No one else can do this for me.
No one else can do this for you.
And we both know that no matter what, no one is coming to save us, except for us.

What are the best things in the world?
Aside from a piece of cake or a good hug, or a kiss, or the feeling of someone’s love, what is the best feeling in the world?

To be home, I suppose.
I learned this from you.
I learned this from the gifts you’ve given me.
And no, maybe I am not so tough or so strong.
But whatever I am, at least I know you noticed me.

And nothing in the world feels better than this
(to me)