Recently I decided to read Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I had fallen in love with the adaptation he directed and really wanted to fully experience Charlie’s words, which we only glimpse in the movie. I posted a while back:
“I know these will all be stories someday. And our pictures will become old photographs. We’ll all become somebody’s mom or dad. But right now these moments are not stories. This is happening, I am here and I am looking at her. And she is so beautiful. I can see it. This one moment when you know you’re not a sad story. You are alive, and you stand up and see the lights on the buildings and everything that makes you wonder. And you’re listening to that song and that drive with the people you love most in this world. And in this moment I swear, we are infinite.”
I have never heard words that rang so true, they touched me so much I put them on a note on my laptop, so I would read them every day, and aim to feel like that one day, to feel “infinite”. Although this whole monologue is not in the book and was added to the script of the movie, with the knowledge that the movie was adapted directly by Stephen, I knew it was as good as reading the book, and I found it so moving that I needed to read the book and fully experience the beautiful mind that is Charlie. The book was wonderful, so raw and full of life, a truly breath-taking exploration into the mind of an innocent soul which is scared and its journey to finding peace. I see a lot of myself in Charlie; emotional, observant, and this unexplainable need to please the people you most care about. However I am beginning to question the validity of the latter, whether it is worth giving your all to a human being, to then be swiftly put aside when you lose your purpose in their lives? I have had this happen to me many times, I guess I must attract these kinds of people. I am all or nothing. It’s a gift, but also a curse. When I give my heart to a friend, I give it all; unconditionally. But most of the times, if not all the time, I have never been given it back, and that’s where you get hurt. When you give so much of yourself to being the best friend you can be for that person, and never receiving the same courtesy, it hurts. It hurts so much, it can make you cry or mad, like Charlie. But what I do admire of Charlie, his faith and love in people, something I think I have recently lost.
I have had more than enough time to think about this lately, I have memorised every curve and shadow in my small room in my university flat, the small room becomes claustrophobic with my swarming thoughts, and the overthinking begins. Maybe I’m just scared. Maybe I’m just using small instances to create a shield, a protection against betrayal. I think like Charlie, I live inside my head, I overthink everything, and everything in my life is something I need to be cautious with. And at the top of this is my friendships, I am constantly questioning the validity of my friendships and whether they truly care for me. I guess I don’t believe them most of the times. I am afraid of being abandoned, of being forgotten and so I push them away in hopes that they instigate it soon enough that the pain will be minimal. But in the process I am shooting myself in the back of the head. I guess I need to learn to start again to stay hopeful, going back to the carefree feeling of when it all started, and maybe one of them will pay off. I mean, it did for Charlie, right?
Actually, this whole blog and Stephen Chbosky’s novel has inspired me to set myself a goal, like Charlie did, something to fix:
Goal 1: To stop OVER-THINKING everything, and let life take me where it will.
This is I think my one BIG goal, something that I will have to work on for the rest of my life. It is part of my foundation, an integral part of my personality. Although it is a flaw, take it out too quickly and the whole structure collapses, I don’t know what will be left. So instead, I must aim to replace it with being carefree, with free falling and not being afraid of falling on my face, you can always pick yourself up. The fall won’t kill me, I hope.
