#13 Strangers

As I sit alone in a crowd of strangers, thinking of them as my crowd of strangers, I can't help thinking about how it is a thousand times easier to like someone when you know almost nothing about them.

Finals is less than one week away and it's really taking its toll on me. 

It's not that I am freaking out that I won't be able to achieve my targeted grades, but it's more like, well, I don't really know. This past week hasn't been really good, to be honest. And I'm trying very hard not to allow myself to be dragged into that same old place I used to dwell in.

It's funny, because it all started from one simple thing and it triggered the rest. And it didn't stem from strangers, it stemmed from people who I know too well.

I thought I've gotten over it. But when an uncle kept on asking me about when am I going to finally graduate, and my grandma made an unfunny joke about how I used to chase for something far and look at me now, chasing for something so close instead, I begin to question why the fuck could I become so happy in the past few months. And as I sat on the bus, letting my thoughts wander, I begin to realise, this is why I've loved strangers more than some of my own family members in the past few months. Because they never hurt me, they never hurt me this much.

And it's the strangers that taught me how OK it is to be imperfect and angry and eccentric and broken. 

And the more I think about it, the more I yearn for more days alone, on creaky STC buses, and more days sitting alone in the library pretending that I'm studying and reading while the truth is I'm just running away, I'm just running away. 

Because my own bedroom isn't heaven anymore. The bus stop is heaven. The bus stop where my skin gets stung by the late morning sun, the bus stop where hundreds of cars whizz past me, that's heaven now. And the bus rides, they occasionally smell like piss and sweat, but they don't matter, because I'd rather sit there inhaling that compared to the stuffy air in my bedroom. And I don't really understand why. 

And the library is my heaven now. Because no one screams and shouts and asks me stupid questions, but there's always some familiar faces, familiar, yet they're all strangers, and they smile at me and do nothing more than that. And that alone is a thousand times better being with people who know you well but never encourage you to be happy. 

Come to think of it, maybe that's why I've been happy in the past few months. I had a routine. I had a routine I could stick to. And nobody interrupted that routine, not until these recent weeks, and everyone I know is stressed out, and it's a cycle. 

And maybe, just maybe, I'm just a stranger that belongs in a crowd of strangers.