Ghost

Forrest Gump said: Life is like a box of chocolates. But I'd argue it's a walnut: crack it open, and little useless shards fall out. Or maybe that's just what someone who has 'aftermath' says. I say that because at one point, the walnut was whole, and not broken, a bad analogy. There was a distinct before, and after.

Today I walked around my old college campus, the one I spectacularly dropped out of after one semester. I have a lot of somber thoughts about this experience. I went to the campus cafe and had a muffin and coffee and wrote down some thoughts on a napkin in blue ink. I prefer blue ink - on some documents, your signature is not official unless it's in blue ink; that's how you discern it was not forged, that's it's real. I am not forging these thoughts, this peculiar feeling of separateness.

I watch the college girls around me. One is staring at me. I like that, that I'm someone worth staring at. I don't question it. I do question the clothing choices - all parkas and mittens, zany hats and corduroy pants. And then I realize I'm judging them because I couldn't be them.

I dropped out, choosing mental illness over conventional quirkiness.

The girls fifteen years ago, when I went to this all-women's college, were horrible. They were mean, bulimic, and petty. I overheard one girl, when told I was to join a party later that evening, yelling - how could you invite Alison to this party? She's weird. I'll never forget her. She was my roommate.

Today, walking around the campus, I felt like I hadn't had the upper hand, the advantage. It wasn't just mental illness. No one understood the particular feeling of being disliked for who I felt I really was. For I had thought I was interesting back then, both for having a mental illness and not, but I most certainly wasn't. I was just eighteen. And young, and naive - so naive it makes me wonder that I lasted even one semester.

The 'aftermath' is what happens when you give up something that could have been great, and then spend a day fifteen years down the road admiring the girls you could have been; the infinite possibilities of them dressed up in winter clothes, but I just see straight through them to ghosts.

In fact, I wrote down "ghost" on my napkin, but that probably meant me.

This piece must be so boring to read. I feel boring just re-experiencing these emotions.

I wish I could wrap this up neatly. But these feeling just sit there, lame and intolerable to sit with.

I could connect this back to my walnut analogy, but who cares? When you crack open something not meant for you, it falls apart, sure. It sits in a million little pieces.

A million little sorry thoughts that add up to only one girl staring at you, and probably not for the reasons you think.