His eyes were a shade of blue you only found in a cloudless, summer sky. In contrast, they arrived in my line of view in the winter, when all of the other colors fell to the ground and faded to gray. I had known of him. I had seen his face every day and knew his name, but I didn’t dare attempt to evaluate him as I did most people. In fact, I stayed clear of him entirely, as if he was a pit of fire on my course of ice. I feared that if I tried to figure him out from afar, solving a puzzle in the dark, that even my most confident knowledge would be dead wrong and out-dated.
The day he first spoke to me, however, was the day I stopped fighting against myself. It was a mildly cliche moment when I watched his bright eyes lock on mine and heard his voice in my direction and my heart stopped. He asked an impersonal question about my family, and I answered simply, with a shy smile and a slight hope that the conversation wouldn’t wither away. It did; as usual, I nodded awkwardly and turned away, fearful that I would stumble over my words or say something stupid.
That’s how I am with everyone I admire. It’s as if I don’t see myself as interesting as they are. I never see the things I say or do as cool or impressive. But I can sing and that interested him. It was the one aspect about myself that interested the majority of people I met and was always the go-to topic of discussion. And so it was. He would ask me a million questions a minute about what it was like to be of the “talented” sort and I answered comfortably, given that someone being in awe of the musically inclined was not of much significance to me (said in the least egotistical way possible). Sometimes those conversations would branch into different topics and the more often it happened, the more personal to him I felt. We were friends and I was happy.
I didn’t “like” him. I didn’t fall in love with him. I hardly had a crush on him. I enjoyed his company and the way he saw the world. He was always “just wondering”, always happy, and never hesitated to say what was on his mind (including his crude-humored jokes, of which some should have made me uncomfortable, but were delivered in such a way that I laughed without second thought). He was always interested in me, but never spoke freely about himself, despite all opportunities I took to ask. Even childish questions, like what he wanted to be when he grew up, were answered as if he was jotting it down on a third grader’s “About Me” questionnaire. The relationship quickly became one-sided and I began to shy away. I started to over-think the situation, imagining the worst possible scenarios that he was capable of acting out. Was he laughing at me? Was he telling his friends about how over-obsessive I was, texting him all day and talking about myself too much? Was our relationship crafted just to humor him?
I was soon afraid that there was nothing shared at all. I had flourished the familiar fear that all of my assumptions about his alluring persona were wrong, and that with my words I isolated myself further, and he thought I was a fool. Logically, I knew that no one would care enough to take that much time out of their lives conversing with someone only to make it a joke. Irrationally, I was convinced I meant nothing to him. I suddenly saw my significance tucked away on a top shelf, and all of our conversations floating around like dust. This period of silent turmoil lasted for a week or two until our discussions became impersonal once again, and eventually all that was left were nonchalant “hello”s and stale questions about the day’s assignments.
For the time that he spent animated about every aspect he knew about me, I felt like there were more intriguing parts of me that I had not noticed before. I respected myself more and appreciated him for making me feel that way. I was limited with how happy I could be before, convinced that you had to spend your life exploring to “find yourself” and discover “inner peace”. However, he allowed me to see a different kind of happy - one that you find just by talking about the things you enjoy and making the most out of what you have with the people around you.
At my age, I haven’t experienced enough to have a compelling, remarkable life. All I have are my aspirations and the people I share my life with as I grow, learn, and work to make those dreams come true. It may not seem like much, but without the relationships I’ve built with people like him, run-down or not, aiding me to keep an open mind and a tenacious heart, I wouldn’t feel driven to act with my best potential and value myself, who I am, and who I want to be. While I may not have had any pivotal, life-changing events occur in my all of sixteen years, the relationships I’ve established are momentous enough. Those people absentmindedly remind me every day that, while I may be restrained and overruled, I’m allowed to be happy about myself and what I have and dream as big and loud as I want. I am not all-knowing, but I was taught by a pair of summer-sky eyes that you learn nothing without questioning everything.