Restless Baby Freaks
Unknown to many, I like studying people. I like reading them and making assessments about their personalities. I like trying to figure out their stories inside and outside their homes. I like knowing a lot. I like knowing who they are deep inside, because their stories are what make the world colorful and fun and life more meaningful and interesting. People are interesting. People’s stories are interesting –
and colorful.
Sure, I’ve seen and met professionals, simple people, those who bully, those who are being bullied, those who are contented in life, and those who are still seeking for answers. But what interests me the most are these kids, the younger ones, those in the awkward stage of puberty and trying to figure things out, those kids who hang out with their friends and feel like everything’s perfect and in their favor, those who try to look mature but fail because they still look like kids who just find happiness in celebrity crushes and vanilla ice cream. I’ve always liked kids. I’ve always been interested in adolescents. Not that I haven’t gone and currently going through what they will go or are going through – of course, I was once a little kid with wobbly scraped knees, an adolescent, an awkward human being. Oh, screw the last one – I’m
still an awkward human being (I’m never going to surpass that stage). I’m just too fascinated in their own perspective (“perspective” is one of my favorite words) about their lives, about love in all its forms, about the world, about religion and faith, about politics, about world peace, about everlasting beauty, about having fun, about vampires and werewolves and magic, about this and that TV show, about these uncomfortable changes. Knowing makes me understand things more. Listening to their stories makes me understand them more. Communicating makes me understand those ‘what the hells’. Understanding makes me perceive life in a different way, beyond its complications and imperfections.
And what a better way to explore stories that make up this world than to ask those who are just starting to make their own – their own stories, their own little chaotic world, their own purpose, their own lives.
Young minds? That’s insane, you may think. Why not ask those who know life already, those who had seen and experienced triumph and failure in their lives, those who
actually have the knowledge? I don’t know. Maybe because I think that they know too much already, to the point that life isn’t exciting anymore. When we want to try this thing that we’ve heard about somewhere and we’re all thrilled about it, and we ask this ‘experienced’ person and he tells us what it can do to us and some of it are not actually good, and we become scared about failing and hurting and embarrassment so we back out and lose all the excitement and let go of that chance. That doesn’t sound good, does it? There are these quotes from novels that I always believe to be true. One could be as straight as this: “It’s not good to know things ahead. It screws up your life.”
[1]; or as spelled out as this: “There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone that day. Things that did not go right, things that seemed okay at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can’t know better until knowing better is useless.”
[2]Why ask those who don’t even have the slightest bit of experience and understanding about the life outside their perfect world, about the life that isn’t just about going to school and playing and Disney Channel? Indeed, their minds are quite young and fresh and inexperienced yet, but their minds are more interesting. You may think that I’m insane to be interested in minds that are not even filled with wonders yet. Well okay, let’s say that I’m insane. I can’t actually give you exact reasons why I am. Young minds amaze me. Young people are always so excited about everything – new school year, cute guys, academic clubs, sports to try, arts, Ian Somerhalder, music, fashion, experiences, growing up. We’re always up for anything, always trying things out, always on the move, never stopping, never ceasing, always so restless. Heck, screw what they say, screw ‘limitations’ and ‘you’re-too-young-to-knows’. We’re invincible, we’re out to rule the world, we’re young and strong, we’re looking cool and bad-ass. Perfect kids, perfect adolescents, perfect awkward human beings,
perfect life.
When adults say, “Teenagers think they are invincible” with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don’t know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.
- Looking For Alaska, John Green
But then all of sudden, everything crumbles down.
Shit happens. And we, the invincible, cool and young people, abruptly stop trying to rule the world and run to a dark corner and regret everything. Shit
always happens. Shits may come in varied forms: family problems, peer pressure, heartbreaks, drugs, unmet desires, unidentified identities. But then, gradually, we get back up again. We leave that dark corner and stop regretting everything. We compose ourselves and try to rule the world again. Young life is like that: we feel good and lucky this day, we feel crappy and doomed the next, but we wake up from that day and start the cycle all over again, and we just learn to accept that cycle and live within it and try to make those ‘crappy and doomed’ days a little better. Being young means having a big room for opportunities and new things to try, but when things don’t work out, there’s always a bigger room for second chances.
That’s why I like being young and am interested in the younger generation: we seem like we’re genetically made up of adrenaline cells and euphoric nerves. We can curse a lot and screw everything but still be fragile little kids who just need some delicate care at the end of the day. People may think that we’re just these misunderstood freaks who are hopelessly in dire need of appreciation and attention. Maybe we are. Maybe we really are misunderstood in every way – our taste in music and fashion, our beliefs, the friends we hang out with, our interests, what we want to do, where we want to go. But that’s who we are. We are young, we are out to rule the world, we are free, we are unceasing. We are the restless, and we are the freaks.
1 Henry DeTamble, The Time Traveler’s Wife (written by Audrey Niffenegger, 2003) | 2 Miles Halter, Looking For Alaska (written by John Green, 2005) | Photos
Teenage Dreams: Paranoia
After that night in the club, my best friend kept calling me, almost every hour of everyday. She couldn’t stop talking and gushing over little things, especially when it came to the jock that she dated. She excitedly told me the things that happened after, not realizing that she already had said them for a couple of times that it felt like it had already become her own personal tagline. Though it really irritated me, I couldn’t stop being happy for her. Of course I was happy for her. I was her best friend, and I’d be happy for her even if it meant listening to her raves about boys and silly crushes over and over again. I asked her if she was in love with him already, although I could literally feel that she was. The words were like written on her forehead:
Head-over-heels-in-love.
“Umm, I don’t know. Maybe? Can I just say that I’m getting there?” She giggled – that giggle was the ultimate answer to my question. She wouldn’t giggle that way unless there wasn’t something more to just liking a guy because of his hair or the perfume he had used.
“Alright, I can accept that one. Just be careful, okay? Don’t let him break your heart. If that ever happen, I’d break his jaw –” Reading too much had influenced me into saying things like that – breaking someone’s jaw. Although of course I
couldn’t do that. “– and put electric blue dye in his hair wax, and flush his perfume in the toilet and –”
“Okay, I know. I know. But you won’t actually do that, will you?” She sounded quite worried – and it was ridiculous.
“I don’t know. If he forces me to, maybe I will. So, did he ask you out again?”
“Yes. He told me that he really had fun, and that he would like to know me more.”
“I just hope he won’t bring you to that club again. That was such a failure. Do you want me to
enlighten him about creativity and proper dating etiquette? Because he could really use one.” She laughed at that. “Your cousin told me that it was like hell in that club, and I totally agree.” I said.
“Oh, about him... He wanted to say thank you for coming and for the excellent time you spent with him, and for hating that club, too. He was really happy. You should have seen his face!”
I told her that the gratitude was unnecessary. Anyone who hated that place would be very happy to have at least one sober person to talk with. “But tell him I enjoyed his company, as well.” I said.
“I won’t. You should tell him that in person, face to face, in the flesh.” Had she been eating the Thesaurus? “He’ll be there, maybe at past three.” No, it wasn’t the Thesaurus she had been eating. Maybe she was on drugs? Or on a trance? What was she talking about? Or maybe
I was on drugs. It was hard to tell (although we weren’t
actually taking drugs, for heaven’s sake).
“Whoa. Stop, stop. What? He will come here? Why?”
“
Duh, he wants to talk to you again. He had never met anyone like you – at least that’s what he’s been telling me for, like, all day. I have never seen or heard him that way. He really wasn’t the chatty type, but now he is. Do you think it’s because of his endorphins or some internal reactions?” When I didn’t answer, she continued, “Oh, maybe it’s you! I’ve told you before you have this, umm,
psychological powers in you. You can make people feel light and confident by just talking to them, except, of course, for jerks you could have killed just by looking at them coldly.”
“I don’t kill by looks! I can’t! And almost all boys are jerks, so your “psychological powers and inner light aura theory” is not true.” I objected. “
Duh,” I added as an afterthought – and okay, to annoy her a bit (which turned out to be an epically lame attempt).
“So, so. You always say that. Can’t you just accept that there’s really something in you? That maybe not all boys are jerks and would just break your heart? That you can fall in love with someone? That not all loves are, for the unfathomable sense of life and hairspray, unrequited?”
Unfathomable? Unrequited? Who used those words? And
hairspray? “But I guess all this stuff I’m saying is pointless since you won’t listen and believe me. But I hope you’d realize this someday. I’m not losing hope. Okay then, have fun!” She had already hung up even before I could say anything: a protest maybe, or a cry of rage or surprise. Or maybe a word of understanding, of acceptance.
It was already three, and I still didn’t know what the heck will happen. Why would he come?
He had never met anyone like you, my best friend had said. That was weird. Everything was weird. I couldn’t stop pacing. I couldn’t stop flinching every time I heard tires screeching and a car’s machine dying. Then I laughed halfheartedly to myself because I realized that I shouldn’t be paranoid. “He will just drop by and say thank you. And you will just say thank you, too. That’s easy enough.” I repeatedly told myself.
It didn’t work. I swore I’d kill my best friend after. I never had a guy inside my house. They were only allowed when it was a matter of life and death (which hardly ever happened), and when they were with some of my other girl friends. I was always getting uncomfortable around them, and most of the time they were annoying and rowdy. I had only a couple of guy friends – a couple, meaning you could count by two hands, and almost half of them were gays.
I never asked my mother about the opposite sex. When I was hitting puberty, I never had the interest to know more about them. All I cared for was music and studying. And I was very close with my Superman, so he was the only guy whom I looked up to – and the manliest I knew. And, all right, I’ve been watching kick ass movies where the guys were jerks and could be thrown down by independent and tough girls. Those movies had influenced me a lot on thinking that independent and tough girls didn’t need jerks because they can take care of and protect themselves – and yes,
kick ass.
Not that I didn’t actually have a bit of experience with relationships and love. There were some males who took interest of me. Well, that was what my best friend had perceived (and some of those males had connived with her just to set me up on a date). I had no idea what they were doing or what their intentions were. But they annoyed me so much, so I didn’t take the time to know. And they were not like my father. I didn’t hate them. They just weren’t included on my list of priorities. And my “Epitome of a Perfect Guy” was hard to find.
My reverie was interrupted when the doorbell rang.
© Christine Faye Ordas
The characters and events portrayed in the story are fictitious and are from pure fantasies. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the [aspiring] author. Excerpts or lines borrowed from novels, songs, or any source will be properly credited.
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a woeful & chaotic diary since 071409
Restless Baby Freaks
Unknown to many, I like studying people. I like reading them and making assessments about their personalities. I like trying to figure out their stories inside and outside their homes. I like knowing a lot. I like knowing who they are deep inside, because their stories are what make the world colorful and fun and life more meaningful and interesting. People are interesting. People’s stories are interesting –
and colorful.
Sure, I’ve seen and met professionals, simple people, those who bully, those who are being bullied, those who are contented in life, and those who are still seeking for answers. But what interests me the most are these kids, the younger ones, those in the awkward stage of puberty and trying to figure things out, those kids who hang out with their friends and feel like everything’s perfect and in their favor, those who try to look mature but fail because they still look like kids who just find happiness in celebrity crushes and vanilla ice cream. I’ve always liked kids. I’ve always been interested in adolescents. Not that I haven’t gone and currently going through what they will go or are going through – of course, I was once a little kid with wobbly scraped knees, an adolescent, an awkward human being. Oh, screw the last one – I’m
still an awkward human being (I’m never going to surpass that stage). I’m just too fascinated in their own perspective (“perspective” is one of my favorite words) about their lives, about love in all its forms, about the world, about religion and faith, about politics, about world peace, about everlasting beauty, about having fun, about vampires and werewolves and magic, about this and that TV show, about these uncomfortable changes. Knowing makes me understand things more. Listening to their stories makes me understand them more. Communicating makes me understand those ‘what the hells’. Understanding makes me perceive life in a different way, beyond its complications and imperfections.
And what a better way to explore stories that make up this world than to ask those who are just starting to make their own – their own stories, their own little chaotic world, their own purpose, their own lives.
Young minds? That’s insane, you may think. Why not ask those who know life already, those who had seen and experienced triumph and failure in their lives, those who
actually have the knowledge? I don’t know. Maybe because I think that they know too much already, to the point that life isn’t exciting anymore. When we want to try this thing that we’ve heard about somewhere and we’re all thrilled about it, and we ask this ‘experienced’ person and he tells us what it can do to us and some of it are not actually good, and we become scared about failing and hurting and embarrassment so we back out and lose all the excitement and let go of that chance. That doesn’t sound good, does it? There are these quotes from novels that I always believe to be true. One could be as straight as this: “It’s not good to know things ahead. It screws up your life.”
[1]; or as spelled out as this: “There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone that day. Things that did not go right, things that seemed okay at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can’t know better until knowing better is useless.”
[2]Why ask those who don’t even have the slightest bit of experience and understanding about the life outside their perfect world, about the life that isn’t just about going to school and playing and Disney Channel? Indeed, their minds are quite young and fresh and inexperienced yet, but their minds are more interesting. You may think that I’m insane to be interested in minds that are not even filled with wonders yet. Well okay, let’s say that I’m insane. I can’t actually give you exact reasons why I am. Young minds amaze me. Young people are always so excited about everything – new school year, cute guys, academic clubs, sports to try, arts, Ian Somerhalder, music, fashion, experiences, growing up. We’re always up for anything, always trying things out, always on the move, never stopping, never ceasing, always so restless. Heck, screw what they say, screw ‘limitations’ and ‘you’re-too-young-to-knows’. We’re invincible, we’re out to rule the world, we’re young and strong, we’re looking cool and bad-ass. Perfect kids, perfect adolescents, perfect awkward human beings,
perfect life.
When adults say, “Teenagers think they are invincible” with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don’t know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.
- Looking For Alaska, John Green
But then all of sudden, everything crumbles down.
Shit happens. And we, the invincible, cool and young people, abruptly stop trying to rule the world and run to a dark corner and regret everything. Shit
always happens. Shits may come in varied forms: family problems, peer pressure, heartbreaks, drugs, unmet desires, unidentified identities. But then, gradually, we get back up again. We leave that dark corner and stop regretting everything. We compose ourselves and try to rule the world again. Young life is like that: we feel good and lucky this day, we feel crappy and doomed the next, but we wake up from that day and start the cycle all over again, and we just learn to accept that cycle and live within it and try to make those ‘crappy and doomed’ days a little better. Being young means having a big room for opportunities and new things to try, but when things don’t work out, there’s always a bigger room for second chances.
That’s why I like being young and am interested in the younger generation: we seem like we’re genetically made up of adrenaline cells and euphoric nerves. We can curse a lot and screw everything but still be fragile little kids who just need some delicate care at the end of the day. People may think that we’re just these misunderstood freaks who are hopelessly in dire need of appreciation and attention. Maybe we are. Maybe we really are misunderstood in every way – our taste in music and fashion, our beliefs, the friends we hang out with, our interests, what we want to do, where we want to go. But that’s who we are. We are young, we are out to rule the world, we are free, we are unceasing. We are the restless, and we are the freaks.
1 Henry DeTamble, The Time Traveler’s Wife (written by Audrey Niffenegger, 2003) | 2 Miles Halter, Looking For Alaska (written by John Green, 2005) | Photos
Teenage Dreams: Paranoia
After that night in the club, my best friend kept calling me, almost every hour of everyday. She couldn’t stop talking and gushing over little things, especially when it came to the jock that she dated. She excitedly told me the things that happened after, not realizing that she already had said them for a couple of times that it felt like it had already become her own personal tagline. Though it really irritated me, I couldn’t stop being happy for her. Of course I was happy for her. I was her best friend, and I’d be happy for her even if it meant listening to her raves about boys and silly crushes over and over again. I asked her if she was in love with him already, although I could literally feel that she was. The words were like written on her forehead:
Head-over-heels-in-love.
“Umm, I don’t know. Maybe? Can I just say that I’m getting there?” She giggled – that giggle was the ultimate answer to my question. She wouldn’t giggle that way unless there wasn’t something more to just liking a guy because of his hair or the perfume he had used.
“Alright, I can accept that one. Just be careful, okay? Don’t let him break your heart. If that ever happen, I’d break his jaw –” Reading too much had influenced me into saying things like that – breaking someone’s jaw. Although of course I
couldn’t do that. “– and put electric blue dye in his hair wax, and flush his perfume in the toilet and –”
“Okay, I know. I know. But you won’t actually do that, will you?” She sounded quite worried – and it was ridiculous.
“I don’t know. If he forces me to, maybe I will. So, did he ask you out again?”
“Yes. He told me that he really had fun, and that he would like to know me more.”
“I just hope he won’t bring you to that club again. That was such a failure. Do you want me to
enlighten him about creativity and proper dating etiquette? Because he could really use one.” She laughed at that. “Your cousin told me that it was like hell in that club, and I totally agree.” I said.
“Oh, about him... He wanted to say thank you for coming and for the excellent time you spent with him, and for hating that club, too. He was really happy. You should have seen his face!”
I told her that the gratitude was unnecessary. Anyone who hated that place would be very happy to have at least one sober person to talk with. “But tell him I enjoyed his company, as well.” I said.
“I won’t. You should tell him that in person, face to face, in the flesh.” Had she been eating the Thesaurus? “He’ll be there, maybe at past three.” No, it wasn’t the Thesaurus she had been eating. Maybe she was on drugs? Or on a trance? What was she talking about? Or maybe
I was on drugs. It was hard to tell (although we weren’t
actually taking drugs, for heaven’s sake).
“Whoa. Stop, stop. What? He will come here? Why?”
“
Duh, he wants to talk to you again. He had never met anyone like you – at least that’s what he’s been telling me for, like, all day. I have never seen or heard him that way. He really wasn’t the chatty type, but now he is. Do you think it’s because of his endorphins or some internal reactions?” When I didn’t answer, she continued, “Oh, maybe it’s you! I’ve told you before you have this, umm,
psychological powers in you. You can make people feel light and confident by just talking to them, except, of course, for jerks you could have killed just by looking at them coldly.”
“I don’t kill by looks! I can’t! And almost all boys are jerks, so your “psychological powers and inner light aura theory” is not true.” I objected. “
Duh,” I added as an afterthought – and okay, to annoy her a bit (which turned out to be an epically lame attempt).
“So, so. You always say that. Can’t you just accept that there’s really something in you? That maybe not all boys are jerks and would just break your heart? That you can fall in love with someone? That not all loves are, for the unfathomable sense of life and hairspray, unrequited?”
Unfathomable? Unrequited? Who used those words? And
hairspray? “But I guess all this stuff I’m saying is pointless since you won’t listen and believe me. But I hope you’d realize this someday. I’m not losing hope. Okay then, have fun!” She had already hung up even before I could say anything: a protest maybe, or a cry of rage or surprise. Or maybe a word of understanding, of acceptance.
It was already three, and I still didn’t know what the heck will happen. Why would he come?
He had never met anyone like you, my best friend had said. That was weird. Everything was weird. I couldn’t stop pacing. I couldn’t stop flinching every time I heard tires screeching and a car’s machine dying. Then I laughed halfheartedly to myself because I realized that I shouldn’t be paranoid. “He will just drop by and say thank you. And you will just say thank you, too. That’s easy enough.” I repeatedly told myself.
It didn’t work. I swore I’d kill my best friend after. I never had a guy inside my house. They were only allowed when it was a matter of life and death (which hardly ever happened), and when they were with some of my other girl friends. I was always getting uncomfortable around them, and most of the time they were annoying and rowdy. I had only a couple of guy friends – a couple, meaning you could count by two hands, and almost half of them were gays.
I never asked my mother about the opposite sex. When I was hitting puberty, I never had the interest to know more about them. All I cared for was music and studying. And I was very close with my Superman, so he was the only guy whom I looked up to – and the manliest I knew. And, all right, I’ve been watching kick ass movies where the guys were jerks and could be thrown down by independent and tough girls. Those movies had influenced me a lot on thinking that independent and tough girls didn’t need jerks because they can take care of and protect themselves – and yes,
kick ass.
Not that I didn’t actually have a bit of experience with relationships and love. There were some males who took interest of me. Well, that was what my best friend had perceived (and some of those males had connived with her just to set me up on a date). I had no idea what they were doing or what their intentions were. But they annoyed me so much, so I didn’t take the time to know. And they were not like my father. I didn’t hate them. They just weren’t included on my list of priorities. And my “Epitome of a Perfect Guy” was hard to find.
My reverie was interrupted when the doorbell rang.
© Christine Faye Ordas
The characters and events portrayed in the story are fictitious and are from pure fantasies. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the [aspiring] author. Excerpts or lines borrowed from novels, songs, or any source will be properly credited.
← older / top / newer →
a woeful & chaotic diary since 071409
