Amanda was at home on any given day. Her wet hair dried naturally, as well as her paint on her toenail, and she was waiting to go to bed. On her face, a smile. After a few days of bad in a row, that week was full of success. Delivery of papers, relatively high notes … and not counting that cool party full of kisses that cheered her.
Sitting and leaning against the wall, she began to digress: discovering herself it’s not so easy. Sometimes she knew exactly who she was, who she could be, who she wanted to be. And she feared. Amanda wanted to paint her hair of pink, but it attracted too much attention, and sometimes she thought her body was not hot enough to make her confident. To let go of the work that paid well, but made her suffer, was like jumping out of a chasm without a parachute – and she barely saw the time for it. After a few parties, she noticed: if she kisses everyone she was a bitch, if she didn’t she was a saint. And her friends, well: she loved them, but every now and then she feared being forgotten. Amanda knows that we live in a world of broken hearts and lonely people who all the time need to prove something — especially to themselves. Fear was her only certainty that accompanied her, because whether she wanted to or not, fear was always there.
“We’re all a bunch of losers.” In her head, to generalize is not a problem, because individual has lost power these days. Our eternal state of anomie, as she learned in sociology classes: everything is so automatic that we no longer think about our actions or ourselves. We just follow, we accept, we live a cycle of “what if” and “better not”. Still, there is no denying it: we are unique even though we aren’t the only ones. This means that we all make a mistake, suffer, think too much, and miss to much. All insecure, all weak. And all strong, and beautiful, and right. Amanda gradually accepted that her beauty is not better or worse than beauty of others, that the neighbor’s happiness will not stop hers, and this acceptance was the first and most difficult step. Yes, she didn’t stop comparing. But she would try not to let it affect her perception.
Before, Amanda believed she was smaller — in relation to herself. And she made up for it with her studies and work. Her dream was to be a bestselling writer, or an influential singer. And they were dying little by little, because of the opportunities that life gave her. But in the meantime, from last week, she noticed that her existence in itself was already the greatest victory she would have: the extraordinary being that is too odd to be forgotten in her passage on earth and in people’s lives. Therefore the success is questionable, and her 20 years were not too old neither too late.
Then the nail dried as well as her hair, and something inside her made she smiles. She doesn’t know exactly what. But knowing that making mistakes is normal, that pink hair is beautiful, that her face and body came from her mother’s genes and that the future is a “today” full of possibilities reassured her. If she ever knew about the greatness and smallness of herself, she would never again doubt her own size. Fear, in the end, wouldn’t disturb her that night. And it would be good if it didn’t disturb her again.