I sit and sip coffee as usual, procrastinating work as usual, thinking about nothing as usual. Then, all of a sudden, I started to recall the last time I received unconditional acceptance. The answer to that, as it turns out, is both almost a decade ago and last week. These things are never as simple as they should be. We are starved for the want of simplicity in a complex world, but mostly, we are starved for someone looking at us and having nothing to say—no praise, no disdain.
Mostly, we want to be perceived as we perceive ourselves, not to be made saints, and not to be compared to demons. All of us are but a drop of paint in a jar of water, ever spreading to fit our own selves, ever-growing, until no room is left, not a single molecule remains which can move a certain way or be a sure thing until we become who we are meant to be: a person, as unremarkable as any other.
Of all answers to the grand questions of ambition, “person” ranks at the bottom of the list. No one ever says it despite that being the only grand aspiration. I wish someone looked at me as I sit here, looked at me and said my name with the untouched honesty of a child, with no expectation attached to it, nor some role I play in their life, and surely, not some adjective such as “writer”. That is all I aspire for now.
But the more I talk to people, the more I find myself playing versions of myself, and yet, as much as those are parts of me, none of them compare to what I see when I look in the mirror. Perhaps that is why I fail in the matters of love, too. This expectation, rarely met as it is, gets projected onto someone else. And then, I bare my soul for a spell, only to receive dismay or disappointment, and I cover it up again.
It remains to be seen if this will ever be met, not that it has any bearing on my contentment or the completion of this life. Since I can at least look at myself honestly, I would say this life is more complete than many others. At least, if nothing else, it is an attempt in the right direction.