"Just tell me how to be
different in a way that makes sense. To make this all go away.
And disappear. I know that’s wrong, because it’s my
responsibilty, and I know things have to get worse before they
get better. I walk around the school hallways and look at the
people. I look at the teachers and wonder why they’re
here. If they like their jobs. Or us. I wonder how smart they
were when they were fifteen. Not in a mean way. In a curious
way. It’s like looking at all the students and wondering
who’s had their heart broken that day. And how they cope
with having three quizes and a book report. On top of that. Or
wondering who did the heart breaking. And wondering why.
Especially since I know that if they went to another school,
the person who had their heart broken would have had their
heart broken by somebody else, so why does it have to be
personal? It’s much easier to not know things sometimes.
Things change and friends leave. And life doesn’t stop
for anybody. I wanted to laugh. Or maybe get mad. Or maybe
shrug at how strange everybody was, especially me. I think the
idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life
and than make the choice to share it with other people. You
can’t just sit their and put everybody’s lives
ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just
can’t. You have to do things. I’m going to do what
I want to do. I’m going to be who I really am. And
I’m going to figure out what that is. And we could all
sit around and wonder and feel bad about each other and blame a
lot of people for what they did or didn’t do or what they
didn’t know. I don’t know. I guess there could
always be someone to blame. It’s just different. Maybe
it’s good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I
think that the only perspective is to really be there. Because
it’s okay to feel things. I was really there. And that
was enough to make me feel infinite. I feel
infinite."
—
The Perks of Being a Wallflower