A Selfish Reflection

I go to sit in my chair at my computer, that's all I am ever doing now that I am in college. Every time I get home, I go and do my assignments, one of them being reading for this class. I read with great joy as I am interested in them all, but not a single reading really resonated with me. That wasn't until I read: "The Red Convertible". The story itself made me take a deep look at myself, as if I just realized that I too am represented by something I loved dearly. Henry and I may not be the same when it comes to emotions conveyed in our situations, but the idea of being represented as something is present and haunting me as I realize how I act sometimes. This realization hit me hard like a truck, and now I will share this story with you.

This story begins over a decade ago, when I would make my first creative work ever, that being my ever-growing story of: The Adventures of Crizion. As soon as I had drawn the reptile figure named Crizion on a piece of paper, he was all I would ever talk about. Looking back, I remembered how much of an annoyance I was with friends I had. While they would collectively talk about sports and girls, I would only want to talk about one thing: my creative works. It seemed as if every time I tried to bring it up, it would only bring awkward feelings to the table. It never felt good for the people I would talk to, and after I said it, it wouldn't feel good for me either. But despite the negligence I received from failing to talk to people about my own self-interests, I would continue to ignore the clear hint that they did not want anything to do with it and instead, continue to force it on them. This wasn't just friends I would do it to either, my parents would always hear me talk about Crizion and his friends religiously, like having a crow cawing directly into their ears. It was almost as if creating this original work of mine was slowly taking on my other interests that made me a person one by one. Any time I wasn't thinking about something, I would instead think of story scenarios for my characters. Looking back, this takeover had more of an impact on my life than I initially thought because these creations didn't stick with me as a kid, they just kept growing.

Even in most recent years of my college career is probably one of the worst it has ever been since I made my original works. I still love my works with all my heart, but I see my problem now is that I may love them a bit too much. I sat and thought about all the times I would go and live the college life for two years now, and I cannot think of many. That is because all those college nights I would be doing one of three things: Homework, video games, or building my original works. I think now back to when I was in my first year of college. I felt out of place because all I ever really talked about was my original characters. An old friend group of mine would be talking about video games, and I would abruptly find some way to involve talking about my original works as if I was an annoying pop-up advertisement on a website. It was terrible to reminisce on because to think between when I was nine years old to today, I have never stopped making these rude self inserts of my work instead of trying to contribute something in relation to a good conversation. I didn't feel like myself, as if I was split in two: One part of me being undetermined with no interests, and the other part of me being the annoying push over trying to converse about my works. I decided to label my two halves as me and a character I created that is inspired by myself, whom I drew with grey skin, yellow eyes, and yellow teeth as they represented the annoying side of me. When this realization hits me as I'm reading this essay, I would finally think back to recent moments within the last few months of how worse it has really gotten. What went from subtle attempts to include my interests to talk about has gone to an incredible requirement for every conversation I'm in. The only thing that races in my mind when it's empty is thinking about other people's favorite characters from my works for some reason. This was not simple self-realization; it was a wakeup call to me as a person. I wanted to choke the life out of my other grey skinned half and make him be gone, so I may stop making these rude insertion comments for good. But my other half must be invincible, because it has been a few days since I read that story, and I still do the rude insertions now. I sit in guilt and realize the opportunities of explored interests I missed out on as my yellow faced half stands high above me and continues to pull the strings on my voice.

This is the end of my story, and as I am typing this now, nothing has changed as my other half still has a tight hold on me. I like to think my creations represented me as the car represented Henry in "The Red Convertible", except the creative works don't go away as the car drowns in the lake; they will stay with me forever no matter what I do. So now I will continue to sit and improve myself, trying to find other things to talk about with others as I slowly grow away from my characters while still holding them true to my heart. Someday, like how the car drowns in the lake, maybe my work will at least submerge more in the back of my mind.