19
Today is one of those days. It's a Thursday: I get up at 8, goof around until 9, get in the shower, get ready and then leave at 11:30 for my Math class at 12. I get out of that class at 1, walk around until 3, then go to Psychology, where I sit and take notes on my laptop and generally pay attention until I get out at 6. I promptly take the backroads home because the freeway is jammed with cars like sardines in a tin. I arrive home, I try and remember if I have any homework, and if not, I sit around listening to music or playing video games.
But not today. today is different from most Thursdays. You see, at 10:16 in a hospital in Santa Clara (or maybe Santa Barbara or San Jose or San Rafael, has a name like that), on October the 25th of 1988, I was born. it's something I regret, being born. life is an oscillation between exhilirating highs, and terrifying lows. Ceilings don't exist, and there are no floors beneath me. And since I am alive, I find myself here, where I am now.
Does anyone remember the 90's band Sugar Ray? They had a single called "Falls Apart" about a girl who only wanted to be noticed. I'm fairly content remaining in the shadows now, but I can identify with that song. I've been listening to it ever since I first heard it sometime when I was 10 or 11. I'm invisible too. 363 days out of there, no one sees me, and I don't quite exist. I'm somewhere between a whisper and a shadow all those days. On Christmas, I appear to everyone, and I'm greeted and people talk to me. Today, too, is one of those days. Unlike when I was younger, when I, too, wanted to be seen, I would rather remain unseen today, tomorrow, and for most of my life.
To those who do talk to the dead, (there's a few people I'm talking to that I won't address specifically): Thanks for sticking around, at least for a while. you keep me company.
And so here I am: 19... and invisible. Happy birthday, sucker. don't choke on the cake.