Sometimes in the morning when sea-planes fly by and I'm lying in my bed, half-awake, I secretly wish that somehow, overnight, a war had started and bombers are circling above the city. Black dots in the clear blue Vancouver summer sky.
Sometimes when I walk the streets at night I'd try to be brave and just focus on getting home as soon as I can, but deep inside my head a small voice wants me to look for danger, to wish for something to happen.
Sometimes I sit and think about what I have, what my parents have given me, and while I'm grateful I can't help but wish that my childhood was a little less sheltered, that I had struggled more.
Naturally, and rationally, I'd slap myself for being so ridiculous, for being so.. crazy. I don't understand why I'd wish that upon myself, when most of the time what I wish is that the world would be free of war and violence, of unnecessary struggle and torture. But I have this strange, twisted notion of a kind of romantic heroism, which I guess is what some people would call sadism, and when I feel that way, I'd question myself if I'm being hypocritical since at the same time, I wish for something different for everyone else.
I suppose it's wanting to test my limits. It's easy to criticize other people's act of betrayal, to brush away emotional trauma that haunts someone for the rest of her life. "How could she do that?" we ask, or we get tired and run out of things to say, "just.. get over it, will you?" But I wonder if I were brought to torture, how much it will take before I break; if I would break at all. I wonder what I would have done if a gun was put in my hand, and I had to choose between my own life and my sister's. I can't imagine what state of mind I'd be in, and I have no idea what decision would come from it. In many ways I'm glad I don't know, and wish that I'd never know, yet still a small part of me would like to know where my lines are.
But it would be too selfish a road to self-discovery. I don't like seeing other people suffer. I don't care if it's "good" or "bad"; there's no way of quantifying that. Looking back on the times I've gone through, I think the hard ones are in a way necessary and unavoidable, but I can't forget what it was like, and while I don't claim to truly know what others' experiences are, I'd think it would be safe to say dark times are never fun to go through. People get hurt, and people get put down, and sometimes they do whatever they need to (which sometimes lead to getting themselves in shitty situations). I respect that, but I still hate seeing loved ones struggle, so I think it's only reasonable to minimize any form of self-destruction out of respect for their love for me.