ran-dumbrants

[ran-dumbrants]

Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How?

Why am I like this? Why is my body too big, my mind weak, my heart made of glass? Why am I such a hard person to like? Why doesn’t any guy like me? Why have the last couple of years sucked? Why can’t I have a break from the bullshit and be rewarded for once?

What is wrong with my personality? What drives people away? What am I doing wrong? What can I do to fix it? What makes a guy like a girl? 

Who is a true friend? Who’s a faker? Who’s a liar and having their ideas spread through the society that I’m not normal? Who's gonna stick by my side when I need them the most? Who is on the brink of leaving me, or planning to do so? Who’s going to help me? Who’s going to abandon me?

Where am I accepted and loved? Where is the place that I can embrace my passions and not be negatively judged? Where is the place I can run away to and never look back? Where are my Plains of Silence? Where is sweet solitude?

When can I be free from the daily labours? When can I run from the horrors I suffer from within? When will someone accept me not as a burden, but as a blessing? When can I be me?

How can I achieve these quests? How can I become myself? How will I escape? How will I know who’s a fraud and who’s legitimate? How can I get through each hellish day and not display a water feature each night as I fall asleep, unprepared for the next day?

[ran-dumbrants]

I Nearly Became Used

Women all around the world experience this. I nearly let myself become a victim. 

It’s not right. Not only could your self-image be destroyed because of hormonal men, but also your state of mind. Today, when I realised my mistake of even presenting an opportunity (which he thankfully did not take), I was proud of myself for composing my actions contradictory to my thoughts. If I hadn’t, well, I’d be suspended from school, and no one would want that to happen.

I shouldn’t have even gone on the weekend. The day was good – walking around the main street of the nearest major town, hanging out with friends and stocking up on food for Toy Story 4. Even though it was freezing by the time we hopped on the train, pizza box in my hands, it was time well-spent. Despite the fact that I was a third wheel, I enjoyed myself, and hopefully so did the others.

It was when we went to the final destination for night when things were a little worse.

Foolish. That’s all I can describe myself as.

I really shouldn’t have let my boundaries down. Those smiles and laughs – mistakes. The comfort of warmth in the cold shouldn’t have felt as good as it did. His arm draped over my body, clutching onto my arm, his other hand in mine, should’ve been broken in an arm cast. That close contact should’ve been further than the Sun is from Pluto.

It wasn’t as bad as the messages the next day, though. Even though I couldn’t blame him (biology is a thing), he shouldn’t have made me answer that question. It was wrong.

And today, when my kind of good thoughts were proven wrong, I knew I was right to not let my defence fully down.

 Women, I have no idea nor care for how old you are. All I care about is that you trust your gut, because mine surely saved myself from one of the biggest mistakes of my life. 

[ran-dumbrants]

Life Is Strange

And that’s a fact. You don’t know what could happen within the next three seconds. Don’t even try to assume what will happen tomorrow, because it’s 60 x 24 seconds…blah blah blah. You get it, right?

Anyways, I didn’t write this rant for the sole purpose of stating that life is strange, although I could write an entire essay (which I’m meant to be doing – procrastination 100) if I wanted to. Let’s get down to business, for damn sake.

Flashback to Year 3, 2013. I’m in your average Australian primary school – got some pretty cool (and weird) teachers, nice (and annoying) classmates – you get the idea. I’d just returned to my original school after being away for six months since someone couldn’t decide where to live. It’s pretty annoying for an 8-year-old who was enjoying her other school like 20 minutes away.

Back to the point. One of the girls who came in Year 2, I started to become friends with when I came back. She was nice and liked the same things I did. I’m gonna name her Katniss (since we both were interested in The Hunger Games – probably a little too young for it, as some would say. Oh well).

I wasn’t that much of a sociable kid when I was younger. I grew up with PlayStation, pretty much from when I could comprehend things and could use my hands like a normal human being (so like around 2 years old, probably). Skip to when I was 7, I ended up having my own PS2 with games like Cars, Metal Gear Solid 3 (a version with monkeys), Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, and Ratchet and Clank. I had a pretty cool childhood.

Only someone didn’t agree with my rather lack of socialisation. She thought I was a ‘huge loner and should have friends’. Fun fact, mate – you can have friends and be a gamer. That woman ended up putting me in dancing, but that’s another story (and many years of regret). Thankfully, she, and dancing are out of my life.

Let’s focus back on Katniss.

So, Katniss ended up inviting me over to her house one day. It was just a short walk from our school, and I was nervous, for a couple of reasons. First off, I’ve never walked along the streets of suburbs without my dad before. We were going in the total opposite direction of where I lived (my school and my house shared the same fence). It was just the two of us walking to her place. And I was going to her place.

During our little playdate (man that’s such a cute name), we ended up playing with barbies and a dollhouse. Some might say she was a little childish, but I begged to differ. Honestly, it was nice getting away from the console and using our imagination. It’s something that kids these days don’t have as much, and it’s pretty sad. Katniss and I ended up becoming BFF’s after that day.

That friendship continued all the way to Year 6. 2 years of trouble-making, being smart to the teachers, swearing behind our parents’ backs, and just being your average school kids. We had fun. Both of us were tomboys, and had similar interests and traits – we liked basketball, had brown hair, had mutual friends, and sat next to each other in class. The two of us were inseparable.

High school came. The time of change and experience.

And I’m not sure if I liked how it all turned out.

 Year 7. Once at the top of the food chain, and now dunked down to the very bottom. You’re the little fish with sharks.

Katniss and I, we started drifting apart. Very slowly at first. Maybe it was because of the fact that we were in different classes, meeting new and familiar faces. A whole bunch of kids from different schools came to one place, and it can be a little overwhelming at times.

Katniss and I stuck around together for a bit. We hung out near the music room courtyard during breaks, saying how high school’s cool and all that stuff. And so did other kids who we’ve never met before. Naturally, as shy 12-year-olds, we started talking to them. I saw them as alright kids, nothing too special.

During the course of one school year, Katniss and I pretty much went from best friends to acquaintances. Isn’t that strange? Who could think such a thing is possible? Actually, now that I think about it, it doesn’t seem too surprising.

Which is contradictory to when I found out Katniss was LGBT in Year 8, and I had (again) moved to another school. She’s totally prideful – paints the gay pride flag on the cheek of her face, shaves her head to a stereotypical hairstyle (absolutely no offence intended). I was shocked when I saw her Instagram.

How did I not see this? For 4 years I knew this girl – she was my best friend in primary.

This whole topic of LGBT really makes one think – about their values in life, what they think is important when it comes to choosing a romantic partner. I mean, it has me thinking about it, at least.

Do you want to know my conclusion, why I wrote exactly 900 words to come up to this part in my little rant?

I had a crush on her this whole time. It was the confusion of going through early puberty, what I thought were best friend characteristics, crushing on guys who I somehow thought were half-decent. Those blocked the truth from going into my eyes. Honestly, I didn’t even know non-heterosexuality was even a thing during my primary school years. I guess it’s a good and bad thing. Me imagining myself dating a girl was an impossibility for my younger self.

Seeing Katniss like this – prideful, confident, stunning the world with herself – could probably bring tears to my eyes. The memories would flood in, piece by piece, or crashing down like a collapsing dam. If I knew sooner before her eyes were caught by another girl, I would definitely have really considered dating her.

My 15-year-old self is really questioning everything about life. And this is my conclusion.

Life is strange.