The Perks of Being a Wallflower

 [Warning: Contains spoilers.]

I really should have predicted the ending.

All along I related so closely. For example, Charlie's frequent speculation of his psychiatrist's constant questioning of his childhood really hit home.

Why couldn't I place it?

Why couldn't I see where it was all going?

I don't really have an answer, except maybe all victims are weaved through and through like a basket of mystery, seemingly like a person that tries too hard to be something they're not but in reality they are and that's the saddest part, and often they are like wallflowers. Rooms and rooms, fields and fields, of wallflowers.

wall⋅flow⋅er [wawl-flou-er]

-noun

1.

a person who, because of shyness, unpopularity, or lack of a partner, remains at the side at a party or dance.

I realized there is perks of being a wallflower, of being observant when others cannot possibly be as much as you because you're subconsciously blocking out the past, which naturally leaves extra room for the present, and the future. It also leaves room for constant, unexplained panic. Something I hate.

Too much of something is dangerous to a damaged person.

I shouldn't have an episode just from losing my wallet. I don't care about the money, I never have on the various occasions of loss.

I have always cared about losing something I'm not expected to lose, like my permit or my library card. I guess that's how I perceived my innocence, or my virginity to oral sex. It wasn't supposed to be lost, it was supposed to be given. But it wasn't.

The worst feeling is losing something someone I love gave me. I'm grateful I can't think of any extreme instances off the top of my head right now, hopefully that means I haven't lost much. I think if I ever lost something expensive or really meaningful, I'd seriously consider killing myself, or at least return to self mutilation at the minimum. The sad part is, is that a few items in my possession have this label that could lead me back, or lead me to death. I know I’m labeling these things as “trigger items”, something I want to work past.  It's good to care about your belongings, especially if they were a gift, but not to the degree of suicide if they are lost.

I remember once when I was a child I was at the beach with my mom, who I then still considered my aunt because my biological mother was still around ruining my childhood and filling my head with lies.

I was swimming with my mom in the ocean, and she asked me to hold her snorkeling mask. Somewhere along the way, I lost it because I was holding it under the water and not thinking about it. I didn't even realize it had floated away until she asked for it back. She was really disappointed, and that crushed me.

For years that memory has plagued me, it's probably something I should talk about to someone considering how much it haunts me. It seems so silly though, so irrational, to worry over something I know she's sub-consciously forgotten.

I'm talking about the same woman who told me that if I totaled her car learning to drive, she wouldn't care, she could always get a new one in the most extreme case. Material things can always be replaced in her world, and I completely understand that, yet still this loss bothers me to this day well over a decade later.

That event—along with other things lost, or rather, stolen—makes me never want to lose anything ever again. I never want to have to see that expression of disappointment in telling someone I lost something they gave me, or trusted me with.

Going back to The Perks, my best friend in the entire world—well, one of the two, love you Bianca—Dave gave me this book for Christmas, saying he knew I'd love it because he had read it before. I tried not to think much of it because I know how non-chalant Dave is about things, but now that I discovered The Perks's ending, I cannot resist wondering why he suggested it to me, why I could personally relate, especially because of a passage I'll quote at the end of this blog post.

The book affected me profoundly, and I wonder if he knew it would in the sense I'm quietly referring to. Regardless of whether he'll ever know how much it affected me or how much I related on a level I desperately needed to, I'll always know he knows why I could have, and that's all I’ll ever need. I need someone else to know my pain, my suffering, but that someone has to be someone I'm not paying at hourly intervals, someone that's not dating me, or someone that respects me rather than fears me.

More than anything, I think this book taught me more about how grateful I am for my friends that really know my vulnerabilities.

I have had many best friends in my life, but right now, at this particular time in my life, I have the very best because of the things I've let them know.

     It's like if I blamed my aunt Helen, I would have to blame her dad for hitting her and the friend of the family that fooled around with her when she was little. And the person that fooled around with him. And God for not stopping all this and things that are much worse. And I did do that for a while, but then I just couldn't anymore. Because it wasn't going anywhere. Because it wasn't the point.

     I'm not the way I am because of what I dreamt and remembered about my aunt Helen. That's what I figured out when things got quiet. And I think that's very important to know. It made things feel clear and together. Don't get me wrong. I know what happened was important. And I needed to remember it. But it's like when my doctor told me the story of these two brothers whose dad was a bad alcoholic. One brother grew up to e a successful carpenter who never drank. The other brother ended up being a drinker as bad as his dad was. When they asked the first brother why he didn't drink, he said that after he saw what it did to his father, he could never bring himself to even try it. When they asked the other brother, he said that he guessed he learned how to drink on his father's knee. So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we com from, we can still choose where we go from there.

- The Perks of Being a Wallflower