Piece

I have a habit of walking aimlessly throughout familiar places. Whenever I need to frequent a certain shop for groceries or other things, I generally like to walk around the place and peer at everything. I think this might be due to the coffee (two sugars) I always drink whenever I’m out. It makes me restless. And I guess I just like to see the same things over and over again.

Last Friday I had done a similar thing in a shopping centre. Shopping centres seem to provoke this quirk of mine the most (although whether it was a quirk unique to me, or simply something everyone does, I have no idea). It was at the bottom level of this shopping centre that I had saw a piece of chocolate cake.

It was in a coffee shop I had never gone into but have noticed several times. For this reason, I think I had, at that moment, felt inclined to buy something. I had chosen to eat the chocolate cake at some point specifically because it looked rich and extravagant. I wanted to eat something like that next week for my birthday.

I don’t know if I am too old to take birthdays seriously. I can only say that I believe that they still play a function, similar to Christmas. What I mean to say, that birthdays, like Christmas, are or can be used for declarations of continuing friendships.

When someone wishes you a ‘Happy Birthday’ or ‘Merry Christmas’, either via text or a phone call, it means that they still think about you. This is obvious of course when it comes from people you meet regularly. But when it’s someone from the past, who you haven’t seen in a while, it is a declaration. ‘Happy birthday’ from a friend (or old friend) means ‘I know we haven’t caught up at any point, but our friendship is intact, or at least I want it to be. You?’ Birthdays have ended a lot of relationships.

I left the store because the woman, an Indian girl, had caught me spying and was, I noticed, trying to occupy herself and spy me secretly to see if I was still there. I didn’t want to make her feel awkward. I have a habit (another one so soon!) of staring at people in real life as if I was watching a movie or reading a book. I lose complete self-consciousness. When I was younger, I was kicked out of a pub for the same reason. I was angry and self-pitying then. I’m not sure what I am now.

So, I had decided to purchase the cake next week on my birthday as a treat. I really wanted to commemorate my birthday somehow. People need to find some way to infuse a deeper poetic meaning into their lives. This is the general idea I’ve had about life for most of mine. It’s probably not that true either. I think reading too much has caused me to expect too much out my life. It’s as if every minute action or transitory period (i.e., birthday) has to be ‘cinematic’ or somehow impactful.

I remember crying at my graduation. It wasn’t a passionate cry, with sharp intakes of breath and making a spectacle of myself. I had simply felt melancholic the entire time and suddenly water started streaming down my face. I was by myself of course. I was upset because I had considered all of my entire experience in high school and what it meant. I felt absolutely nothing, or saw nothing valuable in my experience. I didn’t have an awful time. I had friends. I had been in relationships. But somehow, even though at the time I felt emotionally impacted, retroactively it seemed insignificant. All the emotions I expended onto friendships and experiences was entirely unconducive to anything that mattered. It could have been me at any other high school and I would have been the same. I have this deeply entrenched feeling that I had wasted my youth, but yet, I don’t what else I would have replaced it with. Similar to writing a story that, after reading, you know is bad. But, you have absolutely no idea how to edit it to make it have meaning. I worry a little that these thoughts will be with me on my death bed.

I don’t want to be self-pitying. Again, it is an awful thing to have, self-pity. I’ve known so many friends (or acquaintances) who have awful lives, but have somehow become complacent with it due to self-pity. Self-pity, if I may be creative, is like a sickly goblin creature bearing some of your features. You’re at the bottom of well. You want to climb out of it and feel the sunshine. But this creature, always smiling, drags you down the moment you gain some purchase. And even though you know it’s stopping you; you don’t shoo it away. Or somehow fight it. Because you feel that, in the well, it’s the only companion you have. And so, you make your peace with it.

I don’t want to be self-pitying. I don’t want to be overly dramatic (even though I’ve brought up my death-bed earlier). I’m just trying to explain things. I don’t know. I can only explain the way I am. There is nothing else I can do.

I’m overly sensitive and cautious to the idea of self-pity. I look into every action I do and think ‘what is the gesture behind this?’ and most times I see self-pity. I’ve left the little shop by now, and I think whether buying the cake is a gesture of self-pity, sort of a ‘one piece for me, for there is no one else’. People will wish me happy birthday. I won’t tell you how many, though. I’d say it’s the few people I care about. But there isn’t a lot of people. I don’t know if my life would be better if I had more people that I knew. I’m aware I’m rambling. Ill stop now. But I’ll tell you just a bit more.

I went to get the cake next week. The shops were mostly closed and the streets were deserted. I was cold but fortunately I was wearing a face-mask. Even before they were required to be worn, I liked to wear them in the morning, to warm my face. Eventually I walked to the shop and found it closed. It was a Sunday so I thought there was a chance it might open again. I went and ate some breakfast. I couldn’t sit anywhere in the shop so I ate it at the bus stop. In about an hour I came back and found it closed still. I wasn’t disappointed. Although I suppose I was since I remember sighing once I saw the roller-door still closed. Either way it’s fine. I decided not to eat the cake, or look for any substitutes (‘rich and extravagant’). I had some assignments I could do at home. Some clothes I could wash. And maybe watch a movie late at night. I decided to treat the day as normal.