The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Why do I and everyone I love pick people who treat us like we're nothing?”

   I happened to rewatch the perks of being a wallflower, and it is probably one of the dumbest decisions I took. The first time I ever watched it was when I was fifteen- almost 10 years ago. It is even more painful than I remember it to be, or did I see more of life’s ugliest faces that I get to relate more now? Perhaps this is the case. Perhaps it isn’t. I guess we’ll never know!

   I remember how the person that introduced me to this film used to sit with the pain every night on a chair, crying, grieving their lives and their loved ones that left early on. A real-life Charlie. I wonder where this person is now. And if this person finally reached their moment when they knew they’re not a sad story? Too many questions run through my head, yet impossible to find an answer, this person is a long-lost pen friend.

    Watching this film felt like reliving all my memories at 15 once again, listening to Taylor Swift’s song named after the same exact number. Because it made me feel seen, moving out from one place to another. It captured the turbulence of becoming a wallflower myself very well.  I remember how I used to scream “This is life before you know who you're gonna be” part with her every time. I genuinely thought life was just hard because I was fifteen. I believed it gets better with every cell in my being.

   Fast forward: I’m almost 25- and it does not get better, and I stopped believing. I guess now I gotta rewatch Frances Ha? Perhaps when I do, I’d come here and write about it too, but for now, let’s focus on one character: Charlie.

A Love Found

   Charlie, who’s a wallflower, knows everyone like the back of his hand. He does everything to make them happy, hides when he’s struggling to avoid worrying them, yet never feels seen. Till that very special moment comes when Patrick and Sam finally “see” him. Was it out of pity? I like to think it wasn’t, but through the whole film, it feels like it is. Till they make amends when Charlie stands up for Patrick and says his famous line: “Touch my friends again and I’ll blind you.” Their friendship feels more genuine after, and it feels like they all finally see each other.

   What are we without connections where we feel seen, right? It hurts knowing some of us got so used to solitude that they fear being seen. But getting older helps us understand having no expectations leads to no disappointments. And we go about our lives, choosing our own hell: either you choose genuine connection with the possibility of getting hurt, or building up walls protecting your heart so well. Both are hell for a reason, but between them, I’d choose the possibility of pain over anything.

……..

A Love Lost

   “There is so much pain, and I don’t know how to not notice it. It never stops.”

   Life is a continuous cycle of numbing that pain, some are like Patrick, they numb it going on carpools with friends, and some are like Charlie, they keep it all in trying not to notice any of it, till they finally burst. And it never stops after. It keeps pouring and pouring till you feel like you’re slowly losing the last bits of air.

Then you wake up the next morning, like you weren’t just about to die the night before, and the show goes on. And it breaks your heart a little that life didn’t stop for a bit for you to be able to catch your breath. You must dress up, put your happy giggly persona on, and continue living.

……..

An Infinite Tragedy

   Perhaps the tragedy of human race is that “We accept the love we think we deserve”. While some are very well equipped growing up, knowing exactly what they deserve, there is Sam, who goes on and on with her toxic choices of people that treat her like she’s nothing. Just like most of us.

   The tricky question is: how to believe that we deserve more to break the pattern? Does it happen when we finally stop staring at our wounds? Or when we perceive them as wounds on a body not a body that’s a huge open wound with no possibility to clot? Or maybe when we reach out to someone?

   Perhaps the most important step is to forgive who you were, and to embrace it like a child. And the second step would perhaps be not to fear being vulnerable. Someone out there accepts your chaotic self just as it is, and to be qualified to meet them, you must accept the chaotic self that you are first. Only when you do, you’ll stop waiting for that special somebody, because you become “it”.

Only then, you’d realize you’re not a sad story, and you become infinite.