Lookism: What Am I Even Doing?

Book 2 Release

Yeah...its out

For more check it out on its official release at, "Lookism: What Have I Done?"

[Snippet of First Chapter]

People say isolation begins after high school. That natural phenomenon when everyone you knew suddenly begins a life of their own. And it's not that anyone didn't know but it was hard to believe that this thing we hated held us all together. School acted like a beacon for all these people. Without a beacon, then there's no place for us to gather. Leaving us isolated, scattering for something familiar amongst all the noise.

My grandmother said it was a natural part of life. There was nothing wrong with feeling lonely. You feel lonely when you're born, then you feel it twice as much as you grow older. Loneliness, like death, is an undeniable truth we have to make amends with. You have to realize that at some point of your life there'll be no one else to hear your stories, to witness your end, or understand the deepest parts of you.

She probably thought hearing this would comfort me yet it only made me feel more isolated. Feeling lonely was normal for someone fresh out of school trying to make something of their life. Feeling lonely was normal for someone reaching eighty in a world where no one could afford to live past twenty.

But it wasn't normal to feel this way for your entire life.

Don't get me wrong, it's impossible not to make friends even as a quiet kid. When I was in elementary school I'd get dragged away for every game of tag or hide and seek by some kid I didn't recognize. They'd know my name when I barely knew their face. And that's how I existed for most of my life.

From elementary, to middle school, then high school; I'd jump from place to place, following the hands leading me forward. We'd have our fun talking about shared interests and hobbies. Sometimes we'd talk about the bad things and that was okay too. But why did it always feel like...like it was so much harder for me to share what I wanted to?

I didn't think it was wrong to share my good or bad like some people do. They feel guilty for sharing their best moments expecting criticisms or seen as show offs. For the bad, once again they feel guilt, this time for their worst not being as bad as someone else's. Leading them to question whether they had a right to their pain at all.

No.

It wasn't that way for me. It was just...difficult.

The words would trickle down from my brain, into my throat, but stay hidden underneath my tongue. It was hard to part my lips to speak.

Did I lack the confidence?

Maybe that was it. Others spoke so easily. One word spilled after the other, constructing pages of well written stories. Finding the timing from someone else's end to your beginning...then expanding that into several stems of conversation...then comes reading between the lines, reading people's facial expressions, reading atmosphere, tone, mannerisms, behavioral cues...how was it not exhausting? By the time I considered all of it I'd lost my timing.

Some people are observant enough to notice, some of those nice enough to wait. In my generation it's hard to find people that fall under both categories. So I'm left a nodding figure to a loud group as they talk about their own lives. And to those who wait for me to add my two cents, they still move one without me eventually because unlike those loud individuals, there's really nothing magnificent about me.

My joyous occasions were the same if not less than magnificent individuals.

My painful moments were the same if not less than magnificent individuals.

By my final year of high school I still didn't have a job or volunteer hours. I'd never even signed up for any extracurriculars. That was the weight of my existence. Comparable to a moth to a flame. Only seen when a radiant light is shined upon it, it burns away in that magnificent life but it somehow doesn't die. And when that light disappears, there's nothing giving it meaning. It lives its life aimlessly. Wanting to simply survive as it is.

Unable to process these unbearable emotions I did what every stupid senior high schooler does to feel something. I decided to date. At the time it seemed like that answer. If you feel lonely then you find someone to stick around. If you have trouble speaking then find someone who will always care to listen. And if you feel as if you have nothing special to share then find someone special who looks at you the same.

What I learned quickly is that high school is a horrible time to be vulnerable. Unlike people like me who have pure hearted intentions there's hundreds of others going through the same thing. They try and try to find answers to their problems yet they can't find any solution to fix their broken minds.

Most of them were never shown how to break down their thoughts.

Ninety percent of them can't even be held accountable for their own actions.

I don't want to say that high schoolers are evil. I don't want to say that high schoolers only know how to break each other's hearts.

Out of everything I learned in school though, what stayed with me was how easy it was for others to hurt you. I never deserved it either. The first few times I thought I did. But that's how it usually is in your first relationship. You don't know a lot of rules so you blame yourself for being ignorant.

People can be mean. It was as simple as that.

Leave them. Find something better.

Don't let yourself rot away for things that don't matter.

I wish that was advice I could've taken but I could never find myself angry enough. What happened, happened. That's life.

At least that's what I told other people. In reality, going through those awful experiences taught me something terrifying about myself. Despite all the heartache and manipulation, those are the types of relationships I looked forward to. Because those relationships are what draw attention.

When two people love each other there's nothing much more to say aside from being envious or trying to bring them down. For a quiet kid like me to always get stuck in a relationship with bad people who treat me like trash, it made people feel responsible. Even if it was just for a second I finally felt seen on my own. I was a moth without a light shining behind me.

The person they were looking at was me.

Yet when my time was done and I met my limit it'd come crashing down on me again. Leaving me feeling more exposed and alone.

What kind of terrifying person would I grow up to be if this is how I led my life now? I always asked myself that question but I never let myself answer it. The ideas that I could come up with, all those terrible possible futures, scared me. Like really scared me.

Would I be stuck craving attention from the darkest of places? Was it really that hard to look up to the light and be more like everyone else?

The answer to both was yes.

And that was all it took really.

That's all it took to convince me to die.