Another monologue… this time from the suggestion of “Envy”.

Envy

I envy you. I envy your sense of certainty. That you see the world as one or the other. Black or White. The same or different. I just can’t see the world that way. I tried for the longest time, but it never happened.

When I was younger, Looking at the world was painful. Being told there was only two boxes, and no one could explain why. Why it was one or the other. I kept not fitting. I liked things that “weren’t meant for me”, and didn’t care for the things were. I started thinking I was broken somehow. My parents kept telling me I was being difficult, that everyone else was being normal, and I should try harder to fit in. Yeah, my parents. That no one wanted to be with the freak who stood out.

I buried it. I buried that feeling deep. It didn’t go well. I started getting worried my friends would find out. I worked hard at it. I got so good at adopting other people’s voices, that I lost mine in the process. All the while, that feeling simmered. I started feeling resentful that people liked that version of me, and they were trapping me in this world.

So the inevitable happened. I cracked. Through floods of tears I confessed to a close friend how I’d been hiding this part of me. All of it came out. After what felt like years, my friend just looked at me, hugged me and said “me too”. I cried again. A new feeling washed over me. Something I’d never felt before. Joy. Actual, tangible, unimaginable joy.

We’d found each other, and we went on to find others. All the people who didn’t fit in boxes. I saw myself in their eyes. The kid I’d been, and told them what I’d wish I’d heard back then. To say to them that it’s no bad thing to stand out. That you get to set your own terms. That you’re the only one that gets to pick your path.

Which brings us to me envying your certainty. I think I’d want to find that certainty… In the meantime though, you don’t get to use your certainty to deny me a chance to find mine.