i ain’t bothered – that’s what catherine tate repeats like a mantra in her role as lauren the dysfunctional teenager in her self-titled comedy series. now i wish i can say the same each time a bad break comes along. but fact of the matter is lauren’s fictional and all of us, and life, are as real as it gets.
my childhood days were numbered. for i always feared that the carefree times will vanish suddenly, yet i don’t recall their departure. but i remember the songs and the pictures that got me going and inspired. sky-high dreams developed, there’s so many things i wanted to do and achieve. things seemingly only grown ups could do. so i thought maybe growing up isn’t so bad after all. i remember contemplating over this as a child, as if i had a choice whether to age or not. then i guess the younger years weren’t all that carefree after all.
damn adolescence came fast. wish i could say i was a confident, socially polished, well-liked guy who loved school but doesn’t neccessarily go all the time, because there’s simply too many things going on outside. well let’s just say, i was caught off guard a lot those days and the memories are less than pleasant. i did everything i thought would get me some concern, and this alone got me into so many situations. you can only imagine. so when you’ve gone through something so draining, you expect change for the better, and a lot of it.
remember those childhood dreams… they’re still present now, maybe even more strengthened than before. that’s not exactly a good thing. because now, child innocence aside, you’ve got all sorts of baggage. so the dreams that have been longing to be lived for years are suppressed by sometimes absurd burdens. feelings you shouldn’t feel but affects you so bad. you get attached to things, to ideas. you partake in naïve shenanigans, those that only gets you scarred in the end. the important becomes secondary and emotions take centre stage. you take more time to fully feel whatever a situation, thought or memory makes you feel. you do stupid things. you wait for a chance no matter how small, but you still wait for there’s always a chance that. often, you ask why the hell am i doing this? all answers have a single point that is to try to improve the bareness of how you feel. and that’s when you know that your baggage is well above the check-in limit. all these while feeling hopeless, when the single ray of light that appears from time to time are buried in the shadows of a murky perspective. what i’m saying is your dreams, your hopes and your motivation to go on are shoved deeper and deeper into a hole where nothing matters. the situation is ridiculous. when you try to recover and lead a normal life – no matter how farce – that opportunity is pushed deeper into the hole until you breakdown. then it’s pushed even further to a depth you never thought existed. you breakdown again, but differently this time. and it just keeps on getting pushed and pushed and pushed downwards until you anticipate this trip down to hell everyday. you just get some peace when you’re unconscious and sleeping, but only a little because before you know it, morning has come and you have to take that trip down again. you can say that it’s a recurring nightmare that happens after you wake up. so you get a guess what the end is like – probably the period of giving up. a point where you simply go crazy, drop dead or just cry for eternity. the worse thing is that the one thing that’s preventing your cure is you yourself. the self you no longer have control over, but still you nonetheless.
i guess all I need to do now is sleep. i’m tired. i’m a ghost.
sleeping it off sometimes helps for pangs like this.
mr. sandman, take me to a land where life is not life, and i am not i.
