Subtleties

Why can’t people simply speak what’s on their mind? Why is it that, when it comes down to telling the truth and keeping quiet, people have to choke?

            I’m not criticizing—okay, maybe I am (a bit)—because I do it too. I mean, the fact of the matter is, people are scared creatures who live with certain habits they sometimes can’t shake. It’s not a crime; it’s just life.

            But it doesn’t mean we should try to be subtle about things.

            One of my greatest ambitions—and I mean this, with all my heart—is to be able to live my life as if I’ll die tomorrow. Death is swift. It comes at unexpected times. It swoops in and swoops out, taking people as it travels the world, exploring the living—it’s only victims.

            I wish I could drop my things and burst into a song in the middle of the hallway—not because I want attention, but just because I want to know how it feels. I don’t want to be ashamed of who I am.

            Not that I am… Well, it’s hard to say (I haven’t quite figured out what my problem is).

            But that’s not the point. The point is, humans in general go through life trying to cover something up, trying to hide consequences until they get smothered in them. In the end, it’s not very subtle at all.

            If I’m feeling sad, is it a crime to break into tears? Or is that not subtle enough?

            If I’m feeling angry, is it bad to want to shout until I’ve ruined my voice? Or is that not subtle enough?

            We humans, we live under a set of rules and precedence and whatnot.

            And I wish… Well, I guess I just wish that people wouldn’t be so subtle about it all the time, that maybe, for once, we could all just say what we want when we want and not worry about what others think.

            Because what’s life if we’re living the way we think others want us to live?

Best Friends (and how happy they sometimes make me feel)

Today, I realized something. I realize something most days, but today was a special realization, one that made me, at first, a little bit confused, but then as I pondered the thought in my mind, it made me appreciative, a little bit more, well, ambitious (I hope that’s the right word).

            During dinner, I slipped my phone into my mother’s purse so that I wouldn’t have to be the one responsible for it. Now, maybe my reliance on my mother is a bit too strong for a seventeen-year-old, but I didn’t want it to get lost.

            When I got home, my phone forgotten, I remembered what my best friend had just texted me—that her mom had taken away her phone and grounded her, before proceeding to place the phone in her purse. Of course, my best friend took the phone back immediately without a problem.

            I could be looking too much into it, but as much as my best friend and I are alike, we are also very, without a doubt, different.

            Where I lack in… affection, she makes up for in tenfold. And where she lacks in, well, maturity, I make up for in tenfold. It wasn’t like it was always like this too. We started out as the perfect friends, both quiet, both (kind of) smart, both studious, both bookworms. We had so much in common.

            We still have so much in common.

            But somewhere along the way—and I’m not sure when, exactly—we split off into our own natural personalities. She’s overly dramatic. I think too much for my own good. (And she does too, but I wouldn’t categorize it the same way).

            I guess this realization that I’m trying to come to is that I sometimes don’t appreciate the difference of character my best friend—or any friend, for that matter—has.

            That affection that I lack—I think I’m supposed to, somehow, learn how to gain it, to learn how to show that I do, in fact, care, and to simply step out of the box I’ve built around myself so that I’m no longer hiding.

            Of course, it comes in time. Change always comes in time. It’s not always one person who changes you—no, of course not.

            But I’ve come to realize that it has to start somewhere.

            And maybe it’s here.