Hello, I’m 18 years old. I think I’m gay… funny that I’m already 18 and I’m still not sure about it. I woke up one day feeling different, strange. I live in a very very closed society, and so, I’m not really sure if I should come out but I feel repressed. Other than that I’m a perfectly normal 18 year old, I love art and I think its really easy to talk to strangers because they don’t judge and if they do, you’ll never find out. I wish everyone who reads this the strength to be happy no matter what and the courage to look for it.
One day, I was walking back to my dorm in a bad mood. I looked up and saw a man heading in the opposite direction. In his hands was what appeared to be a live lobster. He held it the way you’d hold a cat, sort of under the armpits, and when he saw me looking, he raised one of its claws in a little wave (I waved back).
This is why I love this town—it seems like, whenever I start to get really discouraged, the city of Ann Arbor steps in and says, “Here, have some whimsy on the house.”
I’m finding a lot of trouble when it comes to trusting the people who are closest to me. My family, my best friends, my boyfriend. I have more trust in someone I most likely will never see again, all they have of me is that one encounter. I think trusting someone you don’t know with your feelings and thoughts is a lot more safe than someone who knows you and your life. I don’t like the way I feel about trust and I think it will change over time. I hope so, at least. I think that’s why I’m writing this.
I just had a fight with my parents. For the last few conversations, I had (falsely) hoped that we were finally on good, at least passable, terms. We spoke about the weather, school, politics, one’s health… but now looking back on it, I realized that was a conversation of strangers. Someone you sit next to on the bus or stand behind in line. Tonight’s, on the other hand, went to the other extreme; they always know to rip my heart out and tear it to pieces. They are efficient and methodical. They don’t waste time. They just start ripping.
I won’t be talking to them anytime soon.
On my 11 hour plane ride back from Germany, I sat next to an Uzbekistani man who didn’t speak a word of English and was visiting the U.S. for the first time. We had a 20-minute conversation by pointing to phrases in his early-90s Russian-English translation phrase book. When it was time for our little airplane dinner, he mimicked everything I did, except he picked up the little vinaigrette dressing and sipped it straight, with vigor. Maybe they drink salad dressing in Uzbekistan. I’ll have to go there and find out.
I was standing in a train station, waiting to take the Long Island Rail Road to Merrick, NY. As I was standing amongst the throngs of people waiting for the evening train out of Manhattan, a young woman approached me.
“Can I ask you for a bizarre favor?” she asked.
“How bizarre is your request?” I replied.
“Well, (almost laughing), I’d like you to read me a poem.”
I asked her if she had a poem in mind, cause I was fresh out. She had a book of poems. apparently, she wanted to try overcoming fears of hers. This was a manifestation of her fear of approaching people who she wanted to approach but felt shy to do so. I tried to explain to her, as she explained her logic in wanting me to read her a poem—that she had won!
She had successfully approached me and made me interested in her.
Still, “I don’t think you need me to read you this poem, but I’ll still do it,” I said.
“Please,” she said.
So I read her that fucking poem, and it was beautiful.
Her name was Theresa.
I don’t know who I am anymore… But I guess even if I did, it wouldn’t change anything
I don’t know if you realize what amazing feat you have accomplished here, but people who take the time the time to care about other people’s lives give me hope.
Today, in one sitting, I read every single entry posted in this collection so far and saved more than half of them to reread. What an extraordinary feeling to realize that other people know the world as you do. And how important it is to remember that you really know so little of the world after all. Embrace this life and this world as the greatest paradox never to be resolved. It’s all relative; it’s all fluid. It’s dynamic and unpredictable. I try to bend my mind and my heart and my spirit so I might understand it all more completely, so I might feel it all more fully, so I might be as close to truth as I can get.
I can’t tell you what reading these stories did to me today, but it was profound. (I’m not one for hyperboles, so I mean what I say.) Maybe we’d be all each of us needs. Who’s to say…?
For those of you who are ready to give up, I hope you don’t. I don’t think you should, but I couldn’t tell you why. But what if it’s coming? The thing that could turn it all around could come for you and you’d miss it and what a terrible waste that would be. It would be a fucking shame is what it would be. For you, and for the person you might be, and for whatever or whoever it is that’s being propelled to you.
For those of you who have love and goodness and hope and joy and peace and knowledge and thoughts to spare, I hope you are fortunate enough to share them all with as many people as possible everyday. And I hope your goodness is never taken advantage of and I hope you’re never underestimated because you’re not suffering.
For the rest of us, we lost and weary wayward travelers, live the paradox and love it, and spread some goodness when you can. Be flexible and open. I’m hoping all this will get us somewhere, because I really feel like we can all be okay.
You know, who the fuck am I to be giving you all this advice, anyway? Shit, I’m sorry. I meant for this to be short and touching, but I guess I wanted to say more than I thought. (Still reading? Really??) I’m starting to sound too sentimental for my own tastes, but I feel like this is realism. Seeking truth and balance knowing you’re delusional if you think you can ever really grasp it.
I’m a genuine person. I don’t expect to ever truly and completely understand another person, as I don’t expect to ever be truly and completely understood. But I feel the world so intensely. I shoot for empathy, but sometimes compassion, concern, or vicarious joy is all I can produce. Either way, it’s intense and it’s genuine. That’s where this is coming from. You’ll take it or leave it, but either way, I’ll still be hoping the best for you. Whatever it is. And whoever you are.
One day I was checking my e-mail before breakfast. I found an e-mail from my dad that had a link I’d been meaning to follow for a while. So I followed it, then I followed another link. It took me to a website that had a bunch of stories. I read some. Compared to them, my life seemed insignificant and boring. I found myself wanting to gather up all of the people whose stories were so depressing and had such crappy lives. I would take them to my house and make them all a big breakfast. Then, I would tell all of them, “Thank you for trusting your stories to complete strangers. It will get better. You just need to keep hanging in there.” But I can’t do that because the website is anonymous. So instead I’ll write about doing that in the hopes that this will get to all of those people.
I think that, maybe, I’ve found what I want to do when I grow up.