Walk Alone
Walking alone down the street listening to the most depressing music I own on my headphones. It’s just another Friday night. I dread the weekend. I hate school but at least it was a place to go to be around people my age. I never wanted to have fake friends, so that drove me not to try develop any friends outside of school. It’s just like any vicious cycle, you can’t make friends if you don’t try but I didn’t want to try and be either rejected or they turn out not to be a true friend. I have always felt that a person that portrays being a friend and is not is far more damaging than an enemy is. It’s simple logic. You know to stay miles away from an enemy but a friend you allow them into the deepest parts of who you are.
Once a friendship is developed your weaknesses began to be exposed. A true friend would never expose a weakness but attempts to help strengthen any weaknesses. I have had a few true friends in my life. I have also had a few that turned out to be circumstantial friends. So that is why every Friday and Saturday nights I walked the same route at the same speed while listening to depressing music. Why the depressing music you ask? You can only fall the distance from the highest point that you reach. That’s why drug addicts get so depressed about coming down. Coming down makes them crave to be high or higher again. So if you start at the bottom you only have up to go.
I would listen to the music and think how great I truly had it. I had the parents that other kids dreamed about. I had a nephew that was the coolest kid that loved me for who I was. I had all the material items that any kid would need to survive on, like shoes, clothes, toys and music. In my head I was the luckiest guy on earth. With one small problem, I wanted to have friends. I would not lower my standards to have a friend though. I was not interested in having acquaintances.
I wanted a friend where I could be me. I didn’t need to wear my hair a certain way or wear trendy clothes. So I had long hair and shaved the sides bald and pulled the rest in a ponytail. When it was cool to have one earring, I had two, then three…then six…then both ears. I bought clothes that were off colors but mostly black. I wore paten leather shoes that had heals and buckles. I dressed in sharp clothes but not in a mainstream way. No rips or tears and not sloppy either. I ironed my clothes (mainly paid my mom to do the ironing). Shoes were always polished and hair always kept washed and combed. I wanted so much for society to look past the vehicle that my soul was using. You can’t pick the vehicle that your soul resides in while on earth.
In all honesty I am a pretty average looking person. I have all limbs, no scars or major defects (physically anyway). I think it is truly amazing how people perceive others by their looks or the way they dress not who they actually are. I had people from school described me as the guy who always wore concert t-shirts. I never owned a concert t-shirt the entire time I was in school. That tells me that they never even noticed what I was really wearing before they judged me.
I had a really good working relationship with some ladies at
a restaurant in
I have always heard that you take on the role of the person that people pigeonhole you as being. Many think this is not true. I firmly believe it. I believe that no one has 100% control of who they are. There are so many things that shape a person. In my opinion is that the perception of others is one of the major factors. Think of it, ever been in a your momma session? Going back and forth your momma is so poor that…. And everyone around is going ooh .. aahh and laughs. You can have the best rip on someone and if the surrounding people don’t approve you loose. Or ever been in the lunchroom the first day of school and a buddy points out a nerd and laughs. I bet that at the end of the year that kid will still be the nerd. I am sure everyone has seen the movies that cover this thought.
I spent many hours watching people and seeing how they interact with other people. I used to love Christmas in the mall. I would sit in the busiest place to be and sit silently alone just watching the people walk by. I know that I did not exist in any of these people’s lives. I was mentally invisible. Physically I was there. They could not stand were I was standing, or sit where I was sitting. Though that did not mean I was there to them. I was more of a nuisance to them, because I was there. I could go days without talking to anyone. I would see how the other kids acted. I saw the friends having fun. I watched the woman shop, while the men rolled their eyes with their shoulders slumped behind them, hopping that the one perfect artifact can actually be found to end the sentence of the shopping trip. I could see they were devising ways to get out of the next shopping trip. Seeing the other men and empathizing with them. Knowing exactly what they are going through. It’s an unspoken brotherhood.
The one place I was the most out of place was at parties. I had no desire to get drunk or to do drugs. I saw how they made the other people act. I saw how plastic the other people acted. It was my hell. I would find a nice quiet corner and sit with my one beer and watch how fake people could really be. I truly could not understand why someone would want 100+ acquaintances and no real friends.
I have had one true friend for many years now. I like that fact that I know if I called on him that he would do anything for me. I would do the same for him. I try to not ask favors from him. There have been very few times that I have called him for a favor or emotional support but when I have he was there for me.
When my mom died he knew what was wrong with me before I could say it. He gave my father money to help with the funeral costs. This is a guy that has had a pretty tough life, and not the guy to wear his emotions on his sleeve. That day his emotions came through as he spoke to my father. I think the tears that he shed were not for himself at all, but for the sorrow that he knew that our family was going through.
That to me was the friend that I daydreamed about when I took the long walks on those lonely weekend nights listening to the most depressing music I could find. Walking at the same speed, holding my head up thinking of how great my life was, though I was thoroughly depressed. I wanted to be the person everyone liked and wanted to be around, but is it worth loosing who I am to get that?
Written by Lanis
Tuesday, September 04, 2001