I met her when I was in secondary school. She was a very beautiful girl, a Eurasian-looking girl. If I were younger than her, I'd dream of having a face just like hers. She was like a mini-Audrey Hepburn to me. She was so cheerful, graceful and polite.
4 years later, I found mini-Audrey Hepburn on Facebook. The little girl grew into a young, confident woman. She was now a model. She was holding a cigarette in some pictures, in one she had an eyebrow piercing. In almost all those pictures her eyes showed defiance. Her posts showed that she was now a strong woman with a voice of her own. No one's going to get past her with their bullshit. Now her Facebook profile was glaring at me, challenging me to accept this huge contrast. I couldn't associate that innocent image of her young self with this new image. I was in awe, I wondered what happened to the kid I knew, what went wrong. I thought I was over-thinking. After all, people do change a lot over the years. It's normal and I was just thinking too much, as usual.
Months later, I found out through a Facebook post that she used to be "a depressed kid with plasters on her arm and a dead look on her face."
Since that day I haven't really been able to get over the fact that I missed that. I saw her for hours everyday for several months, and I always looked past that cheery smile plastered on that pretty face of hers. I adored that girl, and yet, I didn't notice the pain she was hiding behind that façade. Granted, those years were my roughest years. But how do you live with yourself knowing you only saw the problems you were facing, and ignored pains of others around you? How can you forgive yourself for not seeing that someone was in need of a caring friend? How can you not beat yourself up for not going that extra mile and being there for them? How could you have been so blind?
The worst part is knowing there's a very high chance I've missed the pain hidden by many others who were part of my life at some point.
And even if you realize it now, how do you suddenly go up to someone you haven't spoken in a long time and tell them that you have always cared about them and that you always will, even if you never speak to each other ever again.
4 years later, I found mini-Audrey Hepburn on Facebook. The little girl grew into a young, confident woman. She was now a model. She was holding a cigarette in some pictures, in one she had an eyebrow piercing. In almost all those pictures her eyes showed defiance. Her posts showed that she was now a strong woman with a voice of her own. No one's going to get past her with their bullshit. Now her Facebook profile was glaring at me, challenging me to accept this huge contrast. I couldn't associate that innocent image of her young self with this new image. I was in awe, I wondered what happened to the kid I knew, what went wrong. I thought I was over-thinking. After all, people do change a lot over the years. It's normal and I was just thinking too much, as usual.
Months later, I found out through a Facebook post that she used to be "a depressed kid with plasters on her arm and a dead look on her face."
Since that day I haven't really been able to get over the fact that I missed that. I saw her for hours everyday for several months, and I always looked past that cheery smile plastered on that pretty face of hers. I adored that girl, and yet, I didn't notice the pain she was hiding behind that façade. Granted, those years were my roughest years. But how do you live with yourself knowing you only saw the problems you were facing, and ignored pains of others around you? How can you forgive yourself for not seeing that someone was in need of a caring friend? How can you not beat yourself up for not going that extra mile and being there for them? How could you have been so blind?
The worst part is knowing there's a very high chance I've missed the pain hidden by many others who were part of my life at some point.
And even if you realize it now, how do you suddenly go up to someone you haven't spoken in a long time and tell them that you have always cared about them and that you always will, even if you never speak to each other ever again.
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