Parallel fluorescent lights beam on me as I sit at my computer wondering what to write. My mind wonders aimlessly, trying to grasp at any idea available. There is nothing worth writing about. My world is a characterless, boring sphere, filled with nothing. I need an exciting adventure to spark some creativity upon my life. I look around as others lead exciting lives, knowing exactly what they want to do, and sink down lower into my roughly textured plastic chair in deep introspection of my life.
One fascinating thing about myself is my ability to cope with death. My life has been filled with death. Phone call after phone call of crying family members, struck with confusion and sadness declaring that yet another member of my family has died. Last year the head count was six. Six people in my immediate family had passed. I’m emotionless now, I don’t even cry anymore. I have been to countless funerals, and I don’t get goose bumps or chills anymore, I am immune. I wish I still had the emotions that regular people show when someone dies, but I am incapable. I feel like I should be crying but I cannot force myself to do so, instead I sit and watch as daughters of uncles, wives of husbands and mothers of my cousins weep for their losses. I am used to the pain. Every time my family hears a phone call now, we are expecting to hear about someone else passing away. Is has become almost routine, and is no longer a surprise.
The interesting thing about deaths I find is the number of people who arrive to give their farewells. Although you may have not seen them for years, they arrive to grieve, but if no one had called them they wouldn’t have even known because they barely cared for you. I do not understand the purpose of grieving anymore, it has escaped me I am an empty earn, eager to be filled with retrospective of important lessons. Perhaps one-day things will begin to faze me, but until that day comes I will be sitting on this plastic chair continuously reflecting on what is really important in life.
I suppose I have been through a lot, yet I still feel as though I have nothing important to prove, to write about. I hope one day something out of the blue happens that will give me a story to tell. I feel like I should be doing something else, something other than school and attending funerals. I feel like I should be traveling, observing those who are deprived, who work for their belongings, who struggle, who fall down, but pick themselves up again. I want to live, to struggle, to be put down and earn my way back up to the top again. I want to experience things no one has experienced before, to feel, to love and to write about it.