Young Epiphanies
We were at an apartment, and outside there were four adults in their late forties drinking beer and smoking weed together around a bonfire. They were much louder than our crowd of about seven kids from ages 17-24. One woman named Alice I found particularly interesting. I noticed her personality. She was so vibrant and full of life. She was blazed out of her mind, but I could still see the sincere naive ness through the cloud of smoke emanating from her worn lips. She smiled like a child, and her laugh was an instinct beyond premeditation or thought. She was somewhat obnoxious, but more than tolerable. She talked to us like we were the same as her, like we were all somehowâÂ?¦ humans? Even though her uneducated, poverty stricken self should deserve some form of pity, I knew any empathy I could have felt for her would be in vain. She was more than content; the pigtails she wore under a colorful hat spoke more than most people ever do. I wonder how someone can act like that (happy, excited, and flirtatious) when it’s obvious her life provides nothing for her.
Maybe Alice is dumb, or so doped up and retarded that the troubles slip through the cracks in her face. But I know I don’t feel like that a tenth of the time, and I yearn to be her. If she lives in a house the size of my room, loves the dirty, long haired, skinny man she’s married to, never went to college, and is still ignorantly blissful, maybe I want that type of ignorance. Why feel sorry for someone who’s blind enough to be happy in a so called “low” class of living? Maybe she’s not blind at all, maybe she is wiser than everyone I know and looks at a picture larger than success and economy. Maybe she sees the universe and I see the piece of paper I write on.
