Realization.

I’ve started hanging out and associating myself with an older crowd; in their late twenties and early thirties. They are strange, clouded in obscurities, but in an intriguing way. And for the most part, I thoroughly enjoyed their company. I reached the black door with chips coming off, exposing different shades of black, and turned the pseudo brass knob to enter their realm of unorthodoxies. Their apartment was decorated with different sundries; ranging from wizard statues to a gay pride flag. I made my way to the flannel, dust smothered couch where I sat down. The cushion conformed around my legs and its edges rested just below the seams of my pants. It wasn’t clean, or cheery, but it was the only place I felt harmonious with the surrounding individuals, and just accepted in general. Then, just when the dissent of the prior events in the day slid off my shoulders, an unfamiliar face walked confidently through the door. He was completely dressed in varying shades of black, creating a symphonic canvas of somber colors with the door that now carelessly slammed behind him. He placed the tip of his right shoe at the heel of his left, stationing his left shoe to the ground, making it easy to slide off. He then altered his stance and repeated the process with the other shoe, revealing severely mismatched socks. He walked down the short and slender hallway with an evident bounce in his step, making his sanctimonious nature apparent. Out of all the available seating, he immediately located himself next to me. He sat close enough that the couch no longer conformed around my legs, but sank down and formed a ditch where the separation of the cushions should be. As he looked at me, his arrogant mannerisms, without delay, transformed into a timid and lost soul. Not making any direct eye contact, he introduced himself as his fingers swirled around each other in his lap. His name was Jay, and he was twenty eight years old. I reciprocated the introduction with confidence, and he didn’t seem off put that I was twelve years younger than him. He was unattractive. His bottom jaw harshly overlapped the top, and his receding hairline accentuated his misshaped head.  As the conversation progressed, and it was his turn to talk, the lines formed around his skewed smile ran off his face when his expression turned to indifference, like paint drizzling down a wall when applied too thickly. The distaste that, what looked like in the beginning, resided in his eyes permanently, slowly but progressively escaped his pupils. As he became more relaxed, the topics adamantly rolled off his tongue. The more Jay became accustomed to my judgment free nature, the conversation converted into a two person seminar; him being the speaker, and me being the listener. He told me about the mind games his dad played with him, how his siblings never gave him any attention, the interminable reasons why his mother said she left; which were all pertaining to him, etc. As he recited these despondent memories his thumb reached around and grasped the knuckles of his index and middle finger; constructing a compacted fist. It was not his age that bothered me, or his discordant features, but his aura that generated a dismal overcast – resonating through the condensed room. His words seemed to bounce off the walls, hitting every atypical object that acted as decorations, and as his words found their way back to him, he realized how forlorn he appeared. Getting hit with the sudden realization, he thought being flirtatious was the best solution. He nonchalantly removed his intertwined hands from his lap and used them to push himself closer to me. The closer he was, the more detail that was observable. The years of hard drug use sat lastingly on his teeth, and the constant mistreatment showed dramatically in his face. But when he looked at me suggestively and asked, “Have you ever been with someone in their twenties before?” all of my sympathy entirely disappeared. I pushed myself up to the side of the couch, to the point of physical discomfort, as far away from him as possible. “Yes”, I replied, “but I am not looking.” He didn’t catch my social cues of disinterest and continued his conversation motivated by carnal desires. And then it was my turn to get hit with an unfortunate sudden realization; I didn’t belong here or anywhere in a remotely close proximity. The only way I would find happiness is if I can be content alone. Befriending thirty year old drug addicts wasn’t going to alleviate the lament of loneliness; it was going to amplify it. Albeit I felt accepted here, it was primarily because the company was too incoherent to judge.  I am a teenager, lodged in a closed-minded religious town; I shouldn’t expect to relate to anyone. Someday I would find people who were analogous to me, and who genuinely made me a better person. Until then, I would have to fuel my bliss with my thoughts and dreams of the future. I left that couch, left that apartment, and found joy in the peaceful walk home.

-Hannah