Blending

“You think you look good like that?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you don’t. You look like a joke.”
She was always honest like that. I thought she was just being mean at first since that was what siblings always do. I was once a victim of pants sagging that began in 7th grade. It was the thing to do; if your pants weren’t sagging, you were not deemed cool enough to join the large standing circle where everyone simply did just that, stand in a large circle. You were essentially an outcast. It was like an epidemic, sweeping the atmosphere and brainwashing every single young boy to begin lowering his pants. My sister, Hieu, along with just about everyone else in my family had always objected to it. They used words that “indecent” and “inappropriate” and just about every other word that begins with in- that you could think of. But they didn’t understand me. They didn’t understand that I just had to blend in because loneliness was a terrible feeling, especially at such a young age.
I continued my sagging ways until freshman year of high school. It was an even larger community of pants saggers, to my surprise! One day, Hieu had enough. She took me shopping to buy me clothes, not what she called “garbage”, which I thought was a bit too excessive. She bought me some jeans that I could fit, followed by some shirts that I could fit, and then topped off with some jackets that I could fit. But I didn’t have much of a say in what she bought me. Normally I’d refuse to put on clothes that fit me, but something about her insistence that day that scared me so much. We got home a little later, and she immediately told me to try the clothes on and come downstairs. I did just so, fearing for my life. When I came down, we just glared at each other. She told me to look at myself. And I did. I walked slowly and hesitantly towards the mirror, and stared at the figure staring back at me. He looked... very handsome.
I wasn’t so sure what clicked in my head that moment. But it did. Only when you escape the eye of a tornado can you analyze and assess the damage it has done. I was now beginning to realize that everyone was trying to become each other. Every kid looked like the next kid that walked past me after the kid before him. It was confusing. Everyone was losing their sense of individuality. And that was exactly what had happen to me. I was too caught up in this “Great Emulation” that I was losing myself, my personality, and the very thing that made me, ME. Don’t blend in, blend out.