The bell rings. I collect my books and I leave the classroom with my two bestfriends. Outside the school, instead of walking together to the bus stop, I say bye and I go there by myself, alone. I open my umbrella because it starts to rain. I walk for a few minutes, without thinking about anything. It’s Saturday, almost noon, it’s raining and I’m tired. Or maybe sad. But why? I just got the best mark in science and another really good one in math. Why am I so sad?
I take the bus and luckily it’s almost empty so I can easily find a seat. I take out my book; it’s the first time I’m reading it. I’m used to read my books again and when it comes to start a totally new one, I’m really excited. The title is “Veronika Decides to Die”. Funny situation because I can see myself in the character that has the same name as me. While I read, I usually listen to music, but this time I don’t plug my ears, letting them capturing the sound of the rain tapping on the bus. The bus is like my personal spot, where I have time to do what I love the most: reading. It takes 40 minutes to go home from school.
Some people hate the bus because it is too slow and steals their precious time, but I use those moments rather wisely, at least I think so. Sometimes when I forget the book, I listen to music and I observe the others, dozing or talking or just looking out of the window. But there are really only two types of people that you can meet on the bus: the first ones are the usual type that you see every day, while the others are the strangers that I find even more interesting. They awake my curiosity and I like to make up stories about them and their lives. But deep inside, I know that their real lives might be just normal and boring lives, with the only goal of making money to survive. But today, absorbed in my book, I cannot enjoy this pleasure of creating new lives for strangers. The plot is really fluent and makes me crave for more and more. I just want to keep reading. Veronika is a young woman, a little bit older than me, stuck in a mental hospital because she tried to kill herself. But instead she survived, with a heart disease that makes her days numbered. Conscious of her imminent death, she starts to appreciate more the last five days of her life, living as if everything is a miracle. During this short time she meets other head cases and she even falls in love. She starts to understand that the people considered “insane” by those in the “real” world are the ones that truly “live”.
Then I close the book, not finished yet, and I find myself thinking that if this book defines insanity as a thing relatively normal, I must be insane as well because I do everything people expect from me, without really living the life I want to live. I reversed my temporarily depression on the weather conditions but the truth is that I’m not happy about my life and what I’m constricted to do. The only important thing for our age is being excellent in everything. Parents, relatives, teachers, adults expect us to be perfect, not letting us to be what we want to be. Of course I understand that they want the best for us, but if we don’t try to be different now, while we are still young, we will never have the opportunity to be distinguished in the future. We will only be some society’s puppets. Therefore I must be a fool because I’m not being myself, with the constant fear of disappointing the rest of the world. It’s foolishness to pretend to be normal, as the others. It’s foolishness being normal.
I get off the bus. It’s still raining, now even harder than before. But I don’t care, not anymore. I leave the umbrella in my bag and I start to walk. I know that it’s stupid, but for me, a sixteen year old girl, it’s a way to show my rebellion against society and its expectations. The rain drenches my hair and my clothes. I keep walking, with every drop that gives me an immense joy and the sensation of being free. Free from the chain of normality.
