Life As Seen Through The Lens

One

I suppose you're expecting me to start off by telling you about myself, telling you about my crap family, and about my crap life. Well, there's nothing really to say other than my dad is a bastard and my mothers a crazy schizophrenic. I live with my grandmother who isn't much of anything, in fact, she's pretty much lost her marbles like my mother. I understand why my mother went crazy though, living with her mother must have been hell. It's hell for me. But I guess I can handle my grandmother, because in a way I understand her.

I don't feel like talking about my life, instead I feel like talking about what I can't talk about with others.

There are great songs out there. There are great books out there. There are great people out there. I'll probably tell you about the great songs I listen to and the great books eventually. It's hard to share your music or books with the people you know because the books and lyrics become special to you, and then sometimes it even seems like you are the only person reading the stories or listening to the music, but then you remember that the songs and books are not yours. It's the same with people. I meet someone so amazing and I want to keep them for myself, but I know that they have a life apart from my own so I eventually say goodbye. It is weird though. I want to share everything I know with everyone, but yet I want to keep it all to myself.

Sometimes I wonder if it is because of how messed up the world is, and I feel like I'm not too messed up and I can fix everything. I am messed up though. I'm not perfect and I'm definitely no saint. I just wish I was perfect. It is not that the earth is messed up, because the earth is beautiful and it's man-kind that is ruining it. It is humanity that is messed up.

I've always thought this way. Everyone knows it too, but no one really understands. There was this lady with me on a train sitting across from my grandmother and I when I was eight years old. My grandmother was asleep- she can sleep anywhere- and the lady was looking at me. I kept trying to avoid her gaze but she kept staring at me and smiling. I eventually asked her, "Ma'am, why are you staring at me?" She tilted her head and stayed quiet for a minute or two. I kept my gaze on hers but I remember keeping my eyes squinted, as if I was searching for something in her eyes. I did see something in her eyes. It looked like sadness, a sadness that lasted years and eventually turned to a forgotten ache.

"I'm just thinking... Did you know that you look like my son?" She eventually responded to me with a deep melancholy. I do not like it when people ask you those kind of questions. I never met her or her son before, so why would she ask me that? I don't know. But I don't like it. I was a very blunt child and I didn't care if what I said hurt others feelings. I think I hurt her feelings because what I said after she asked me if I knew that I looked like her son, she had a pained look on her face. "I never met your son before. I can't know what he looks like if he is not around."

"My son passed away years ago.. when he was around your age. From a really bad sickness." She ended up talking about how wonderful her little boy was, and how she wanted another child but just could not have one due to her and her ex-husbands divorce, and that she couldn't bear another child because the memory of her son still kills her. Now I know why the lady had a pained expression on her face when I said I never met her son before. It was because I had said I couldn't know what he looked like if he was not around, and in all reality, he wasn't.

I'm just rambling now, I know, but I have a point to my story. The lady stopped speaking for a while and stared out the window. I kept my eyes on her and I didn't say anything, being that I did not know what to say because a grown women was going on about her life story to me, an eight year old, as if I was a grown man and friend. She had looked back at me and gave me a small smile, saying, "You don't talk much, do you?" I shook my head and started to think if I talk a lot or if I don't talk all that much. "I don't know if I talk a lot or not." I had eventually said. She chuckled and reached into her bag, pulling out a book.

I remember thinking, Am I really that boring to talk to? Is she pulling out this book to read because I'm not fun to talk to? "Do you like to read?" She had asked me. I nodded my head and gave her a big smile. "Of course I do!" With that she handed me the book. "This was my sons favorite book and he had me read it to him every night before he went to bed. I don't like to share my books or my special memories with others. But you seem like a really sweet child. You take care of that now. Okay?" She gave me a warm smile and ruffled my hair as she handed me the book.

I nodded my head vigorously and looked at the title. Peter Pan by J.M Barrie. Ever since then I like to only share my important things with those whom are important to me.I guess what I'm trying to say is, well, that the lady really made a big impression on me and I really liked her. I don't know why some memories stand out more than others, but they do. I was a weird kid. Still am if you must know.

I tend to stand in the background and watch people from afar. I see a family and I wonder if the dad is a good dad who gives his children hugs and teaches his son to play football, and I wonder if the mom is a good mom who reads to her children every night and braids her daughters hair before school each morning.

Sometimes I wonder if the dad is a jerk and ignores his children because he is always busy with 'work', and if the mom is just as bad as the dad and always hangs out with her girlfriends and only talks about her children to brag about them. I see families who look so torn apart and I can see the dad hitting his wife and her protecting her children. I see families so close and I can see them all laughing at the dinner table and posing the next day for family pictures. Those people catch me watching them sometimes and give me looks. I just smile back though.

Those who know me, know me as a strange guy. I'm always either acting goofy because I'm bored or I'm criticizing others or I'm being an optimistic pessimist.

I guess I didn't tell you anything useful to know about me. I just needed to ramble on to someone about something to distract my thoughts, because I don't understand the world much right now. It all confuses me.