episode 01: blindsided

this is a non-fictional tale inspired by someone who will remain anonymous, and is accompanied by a short rant about autumn.

i was young, and even younger at heart, so fragile and inexperienced, crippled in fear of rejection, incapable of taking the risks that someone seemingly alive would regularly take as if it were second nature. there i was, sixteen or seventeen. lacking audacity, courage.

there she was. naive, younger than me but much more mature at heart. glowing with life and carrying a smile so radiant it stole the entire room.

we were best friends you could say. consistently together, consistently accomplishing nothing other than killing time. and still, there i was, too naive to understand the ladder theory, to understand that it was sabotaging me. too naive to be aggressive, audacious, courageous.

now years have passed, i've morphed into someone strong. arguably emotionless and wise beyond my years. yet until history is rewritable, i will never be able to bear looking into her eyes again. the ones i used to intentionally look away from, as if to avoid losing myself in them. the same eyes that once took my breath away would now just act as a mirror, reflecting the person i was then. the person who occasionally haunts me. the person the unforgiving * autumn wind blows back into my consciousness each year. the person who was young, even younger at heart and completely blindsided by her mere being.

i must stress the fact that all of this is irrelevant to me now. i haven't cared deeply about this girl in five or six years.

with that said, it's funny how someone who seemed to mean the world to you at one point could just completely diminish in value so rapidly. perhaps it's just due to a human coping mechanism hardwired into our minds, helping us accept what we cannot change, conveniently running hand in hand with the truth that it's easy to see unrealistic value in someone you admire. sometimes when the smoke clears you realize the person you were infatuated with doesn't actually exist past the boundaries of your own imagination.

she quickly became just another air-headed face in the crowd, without noteworthy substance.

but still, i sometimes question what she would see in my eyes. the same person? the me from then, overlooking who i am present day? initial impressions reluctantly change, and individual human perception is subjective, is it not? who i am to her may never be who i am to everyone else.

* autumn is an important season to me. i never was able to appreciate its beauty until after i dropped out of high school at fifteen, directly preceding my sixteenth birthday in july. when the leaves were changing color that year, i wasn't being bombarded by the stress of heading back to school, but rather just hanging out with (and constantly performing mindless acts of delinquency with) my friends kyle, amber, jasmine, justin and a handful of others. i'd say autumn is my favorite season, and also a great reminder of myself at ages sixteen and seventeen. it was a time of simplicity, a time of growth, and is almost entirely a blur to me now. i suppose that means i must have been having some mind-altering good times.

until next time