Alex & Joan

Normalcy (Joan)

Normalcy – for all of her life she's been used to being normal, going through the day being nice to everyone, but making sure every conversation she had does not go further than a small talk. That's just her, she guesses. She's scared of attachment and commitment. She's scared of voicing out her opinions just because they may use it against her for later. She's afraid of being the center of attention, of popularity because she's afraid of making mistakes so she just tries to blend in. She wanted to be seen but she's afraid of getting noticed, she wanted to be loved but was too afraid to show her heart.

            So when Alex came into her life, with the highest tendency of taking that normalcy away from her, she had to step back and do a double take. Can she really be friends with someone like him? Her first thought when she met him was "I could never be friends with that guy," not because he was mean or anything, but because he was simply out of her league. In other words, for once in her life she might actually be seen for her true self and she wasn't quite prepared for it just yet.

            Looking back, she just couldn't begin to understand how she had come close to that boy, and more ludicrously, how she fell in love with him. She felt like it was her responsibility to stay away from everything that might hurt her and anyone so when the opportunity came for her to get rid of her feelings for Alex, she didn't think twice in grabbing it. She clung to her idea of normalcy too much that she was preventing to let things happen the way they should have happened.

              So, now as she sits in her desk, with every bit of normalcy surrounding her, she's never felt so lifeless. It was eating her alive – the grey of her laptop, the ivory walls of her office, her pale and slender hands tapping stacks of paper away, the once warm incandescent light that had been very welcoming for her in her first day of work but now seems to dull its glow every passing day - all of those combined created an eerie and disintegrating feeling short-circuiting her lungs. How could she feel so alien in a place where she ought to belong?

               She wanted this, right? To be part of something this big, her dreams of being on top in her career path getting closer and closer every day, but now as her world begins to open wider and bigger for her, she starts feeling smaller and smaller. She decided that maybe it was just a part of the bargain - that miniscule inconvenience you had to pay for reaching your dreams, but maybe it was also because for the longest time, she had been nonchalant about what her heart wanted to say and now that she's run out of reasons to not hear it out, she can hear its message loud and clear. And this time, she had no choice but to listen.