Run-of-the-mill

I have picked up every possible thing I have ever been interested in or at least things that people thought I might be interested in, anything they expected I'd pique an interest in. At first, I did not pick these things up because I genuinely cared about them- I couldn't care less. I picked them up because I had to make up a persona, something that is coherent enough to pass as a person or something familiar enough to fit my surroundings so I would not feel so out of place, everywhere, every time. I am nothing but nondescript, run-of-the-mill, indecorous. A pariah, even. I suppose nothing is particularly 'remarkable' about me, so I have made a habit of becoming remarkable by association. It somehow feels like you are a shark in a goldfish bowl, too big to fit in but the familiarity of the water makes you feel belonged, in a sense. I consume, and consume and consume books, music, films, words, opinions, interests to quench my thirst for inclusion. The worst, pathetic part of all this is that I have reached an impasse where I could no longer tell where the performance ends and I begin. I consumed to substantiate what I am not. I learnt things I was not passionate about; I collected tastes like profiles, opinions like proof of personhood. Every new interest becomes another piece of evidence that I can present to the world, 'see, I am someone!' 'See there is something here worth knowing!' But beneath all of it, I am terrified that if I stop consuming, imitating, there will be nothing left to present. No more curated interests, no borrowed language, no persona assembled from the remnants of everyone I thought was more interesting than me. Just me. I am not sure even now, if I have ever learned how to be enough of what I am.

By Elya