I accidentally lost my footing and stumbled away from the painting of my life. I had been stooped over it for so long, laboring away, that I'd forgotten what it looked like from a distance, and when I looked again, I realized that I had only painted 1 square inch of the canvas. I was surprised at how different my life looked from far away. It's wasn't half as glamorous as it had seemed up close. All the little details I had sweated and stressed over were blurred into one small rather unimpressive blob. Just moments earlier I had been filled with pride at how accomplished my life looked. Thinking back on that pride now made me feel silly and foolish.
Then I looked around the studio to see if anybody else had noticed what I had, but they were all painting, nose to canvas, eyes crossed in concentration. Why hadn't they stepped back? Did they even know how big their canvas actually was? And all the sudden, I was an alien from the planet of Far Away From My Painting.
A familiar feeling came over me, reminding me of previous occasions where I'd had the same mix of thoughts and emotions. On one of those occasions, I attempted to capture the feeling in writing. It was freshman year during history class. I was hit with a revelation similar to today's. When I got home from school, I rummaged through a stack of old scribbles and notes that I've saved over the years and miraculously, found what I was looking for.
Behold the great insight of my freshman self:
"Was it wrong to be so different from these animals? To growl, screech, and run were not of particular interest to me. They would bark at me on occasion, but when I answered back in plain English, my words never reached their ears. There were the runts of the family of course, and they were different as well, but not my different. I was alone. Stepping out into the jungle, like all cubs must, I find myself enveloped in a sea of immaturity, alone with these animals."
And then, from the same pile of papers and doo-dads , I pulled out more memories. I found some lemon Skittles chapstick and put it on. It tasted like alienation, yet another memory of loneliness. I wore that chapstick all evening. I put it on thick so that I could smell it despite my stuffy nose. They say that smell is one of the strongest memory triggers, so I save smells that have specific memories attached to them, like chap stick. When I put that lemon chapstick on, it's almost like I'm back at the ping pong table in my sweatpants and t-shirt humming a song that's not mine.
I walked past a mirror and came back to the present at the sight of my pale yellow lips. I realized with amusement that I was even starting to look the part of The Alien.
