What do you see?

I’ve always liked music. You see, there is something about the way each beat is timed and each note sung that makes me come alive. I find that I cannot help but sway or tap to the rhythm as it plays. It doesn't really matter to me if I hum along off-key or if I bob my head a little too hard in the process. All as long as I can feel each beat of the drum as it comes.

“Hey!” My mini dance party comes to a sudden end as I look up to lock eyes with a horrified face. “What are you doing?” She shouts, attempting to be heard over the sound in my headphones. At that moment, I could only hope that the automated frown on my face would be enough of an answer for her. Is it not obvious what I am doing? “You’re so weird.” she quickly remarks as she starts to slowly walk away from me.

“I’m aware.” I wave her away as I continue down the corridor and back to my college dorm room. And no. That was not a quick retort attempting to salvage whatever dignity I had left from that encounter. It was not me trying to make myself feel better in any way. The truth is, I genuinely was aware. It was a known fact. Common knowledge. I am weird.

As I sit down at the small desk in my room, my mind paces over all the workload I have to cover. I can’t help but think that if I knew that this was what I was getting myself into, then maybe I would have not been so eager when I applied for med school. Maybe I would have been leading a different life right now. One with a little more time on my hands and a little less stressful. Not to say that it is a complete nightmare. It does have its days when it's all rewarding. For instance, it was because of med school that I stumbled upon an opportunity to fly to the beautiful city of Hong Kong for a few days. That was my first time abroad all by myself and to be honest, the experience had me on edge the entire time. We were a bunch of medical students who flew in from all over the world for this particular event. I was on edge because I generally wanted to represent my country and my people well. I wanted to do all the right things and say all the positive things I know about where I come from. And of course, the time came when we, as a group, were talking about our countries. Everyone had a lot to say. My turn came and I was two sentences into my speech on how cool my country is when someone threw her phone screen into my face. My eyes struggled to adjust as she went on to exclaim “Is this your country?”

It was a picture of one of the most poverty-stricken parts of the land with a crude headline of our current financial crisis and how we weren’t doing so well as a nation. That was the first thing Google thought to bring up. Scrolling down revealed a few more political scandals with a few good remarks here and there.

“No,” I said. I meant to say that that was not necessarily an accurate description of our country and was just the most recent mishap. What I failed to realize at that moment was that to them it sounded like I was outright renouncing my citizenship and dissociating myself from the country. They began to laugh at my response and continued to bombard me with follow-up questions, talking over one another. They kept poking me to say something amidst all their noise. I was mute.

“You’re so weird.” was the concluding statement to that discussion as someone else began to talk about the wonderful nation of Germany.

I must admit, it stung a little bit for people that I had just met to see that part of me first. To have the briefest conversation with a stranger and have them conclude in the shortest of times that there is something that’s a bit off about me. It made me wonder what they saw. Because to me, I was acting as anyone else would… 

My phone screen lights up as if to draw me back to reality and remind me of the mountain of a workload that I have before me. My mother had sent a photo on the family group chat and it seemed that it had gotten everyone so excited. “You were so small.” Mum pointed out to me. Big brown bright eyes stare at me across the screen as I stare at the photo. I was so small.

It made me miss the simpler times. When ‘A’ was A and ‘B’ was B. These days, a theoretical patient comes in vomiting and it could mean at least a hundred things. Back then, I would spend my days wondering how on earth I could get to a hundred when I counted. Friends weren’t easy to come by for me so I never really had to deal with any of that drama. At lunch break, I would find myself a nice corner to sit and have my meal with the utmost gratitude. After that, I would be picked up from school and life would sort of just repeat itself. A simple life.

Oh, but there was that one eventful day. My little corner at lunchtime had been visited by a group of older girls. The one in pigtails had asked me why I was not playing with everyone else and I had told her that all I wanted to do was eat my lunch at that time. I would imagine she was dissatisfied with my response because after that she reached into her bag, brought out her orange juice, and made sure to pour it all onto my dress before I could even blink. Noting the collection of fluid on my lap, I stood up and what had not already been absorbed by my dress fell to the floor.

“Look! She peed on herself!” she shouted and ran off laughing with the other girls that were accompanying her.

“She’s so weird!” the girls exclaimed to everyone else they ran into, making sure to point back at me so that the people don’t get confused.

I was so confused. What just happened? 

I brushed it off, sat back down, and continued to bite on into my sandwich. 

Up until this day, I don’t know what it was that she had seen in me that made her say or do that. To me, I was acting like everyone else was.

I did learn to make friends in my early teens though, so all's well that ends well I guess. At the time, I had just begun a new chapter in my life at a popular all-girls boarding school. It was customary that the older girls welcome us newbies and help us feel comfortable. On that particular day, I was settling down in my dorm when I heard a call from behind me.

“You! Come here.” 

I looked up to see, what I had considered at the time, the very definition of a has-it-all-figured-out type of student. Every single black hair was in place behind her diamond-shaped face. The window light gently settled on her clear brown skin as if a natural spotlight was constantly following her around.

I went over to where she called me to and found three other newbies all seated. She pointed for me to sit and I obeyed very excitedly.

“I’m Gertrude and I welcome you all… ” She went on for a few minutes about how our time here at this school is going to be great. I don’t know if I heard all of it though because in my excitement my marvel kept switching from her, to how well she spoke, to my colleagues beside me, and finally, to the room we were in and how I thought it was all so cool.

The room was suddenly silent. I looked up and met her puzzled gaze as her hazel eyes stared right through me. “You’re weird.” she slowly let out.

I was taken aback. But she carried on with her speech and dismissed us right after.

Following that day, I would smile and wave whenever I met her in the corridors and she would wave back with a “Hey there, weird kid.” But that didn’t matter. I had just made my first of many friends at that school.

I never bothered to ask her what she saw on that very first day we met that made her tell me that. To me, I was acting like anyone else would.

*

My eyes slowly settle back onto my phone screen.

It’s 21:24 hrs.

“I should really get to work now.”