How To Fit A Misfit?

Chapter 3: Squeeze The Moment

So finally after one month of shivering and panicking I'm getting peace now.
No I'm not dead 'yet' , it's just summer break.

Susan will be in her archeology internship and for Emily she is going on a family trip.

It will be a peaceful break. Just me and Oogway (Oogway is my pet turtle and the one who knows all my secrets. He is my another and favourite best friend).

This summer break I won't be forced to go and hangout unnecessarily with huge groups of people whom I don't even know. I don't have a problem with Susan and Emily making friends other than me or hanging out with them but I'm not a people's person and they know that, everytime I fail to indulge in their discussions I get hours of lectures about how useless and unkind I'm.

Trust me, I never do anything to disrespect their friends but I can't be a social butterfly, I can't talk my heart out to people whom I barely know. I don't like having conversations just because you're supposed to have one. I like conversations which are worth having. Now discussing about celebrities' makeup is not my thing.

Why are people so determined to take me out of my comfort zone. If you take a fish out of water it won't learn how to survive on land, it will die.

This summer will be all about watching 'The map of tiny perfect things' for maybe five hundredth time and consume jars of Nutella .....heaven.

So mom is not home today and it is raining outside. Following the plan, Oogway and I would be watching 'The map of tiny perfect things' with Nutella and hot caramel popcorns.

While the popcorns were getting ready I started scrolling my insta feed, what caught my eye was Elice Mist has posted that they're having this competition where you've to write a report on if population growth was boon to mankind or a bane. The best report will be posted by her on her official Instagram handle!!!

Elice Mist is one of the best journalist, she is one of the strongest and most confident woman I know. To be honest she is my biggest inspiration.

Then suddenly the microwave beeped as if it was reminding me to come back to reality and do what I was doing for greater good.

I obeyed the microwave. I took the caramel popcorn and Nutella to my room. Then I along with Oogway started watching 'The map of tiny perfect things.'

To my distress was the fact that my anticipated peace was nowhere to be found. I couldn't focus even on my favourite movie. If she posted something that I wrote on her handle , that would be the biggest honour I can ever have.

But there'd be tonnes of people thousand times better than me. My writing would be like a kindergarten child's sketch infront of them. If she actually ever reads it, then she would find me stupid.
Plus I don't wanna provoke the journalism urge in me in any way.

I picked up my phone and looked at her post again. There were people in her comment section informing her that they'd already sent their articles. Why not me then? Why can't I've what they've? Maybe because who I'm - an anxious mess, who can't even talk to salesperson. I still wanted to, knowing all these facts I still wanted to.

I decided to give it a shot. I still hate me so even if I fail, nothing will change. You can't fall when you are already on the ground.

But what if she actually finds it super dumb, what if she laughs with her colleagues at it, what if she blocks me ....... ugh!!! Sometimes I seriously think how my life would have been if I didn't overthink so much? Everything would have been so different, so better. So technically I am right now overthinking about me overthinking all the time.... That's double overthinking ...... God!! Why do I overthink so much?!

So I decided to push these thoughts aside and do some actual writing. I worked straight for four hours. I studied different essays, watched videos of different sociologists, downloaded and read certain chapters of ebooks on this topic, I focused more on the point of views of India and China as these countries have the highest population. I don't know exactly when I slept but I know I saw the sunrise.

My report was complete with shivering hands and thousands of thoughts (99.99% of them were negative) I mailed it to her.

*** Two weeks later***

I haven't thought about that report much since I wrote it (or atleast I've pretended so).

But I'm 99.99% sure that the result won't be in my favour. But that 0.01% is enough to hurt me badly. I some what even regret doing the entire report thing.

My phone beeped, I picked it up to check what mayhem happened now.

Wh....n...ho ..how.....s.seriously.....nooooo.......yeah......what.... I am dreaming. If I'm then please god kill me in sleep, I don't wanna wake up.
ELICE MIST TAGGED ME IN A POST ..... SHE POSTED MY REPORT!!! SHE LIKED IT!!!

She posted my report!!!!

I was screaming at the peak of my voice when my mom entered, concerned.

"What's wrong Hazelnut?"

I still trying to catch my breath replied "there was this competition where I wrote a report on population and Elice Mist posted it!!!!! I won!!! ...... And mom please don't use that nickname again ... I hate it."

We both laughed.

There are rare occasions when I'm genuinely proud of myself and today was one such day.

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Hope you enjoyed!!