Personal Essay

I sat on the couch upside down. Legs over the back, my back against the seat, and my head hanging over the edge. The black and white movie playing on the television, sat high up on the wall across the room. The lights dimmed down in the dark room, as my family sat around me on the sofa, the floor, and on chairs. All ostensibly rapped into the plot as characters did something on the screen. I however, had long since stopped paying attention to the film.
I stared blankly at the screen, seeing the figures move, without truly seeing any of what was happening; my brain no longer holding or receiving the information properly. I sat thinking about what I, resting upside down on the couch, was seeing as opposed to my sister, brothers, or parents. We all were in fact watching the same movie; eyes all looking at the same screen, with the same information appearing before us. However, I could not help but wonder what they were really seeing.
If they noticed that in the background of the car chase, the same three buildings were flashing past in the rear windshield, or rather the fact that every time the car took a turn the driver sitting in the car did not move the steering wheel. Slowly my thoughts wondered even farther from the film. The gunshots that projected from the surround sound, shaking the room, faded into nothing more than white noise. The epic battle and chase scene, as my younger brother called it, not even being stored into my memory.
I started to ponder what others saw. When walking down the street what about others thought, what thoughts consumed there beings. However, the light bulb in my brain flashed a brighter warm gold color at the most captivating thought I had. What did others see me as when I passed by on the street or met them for the first time?
I got up from my place on the coach and slowly walked into the bathroom. Flicking on the light, I looked into the mirror and seemed to see myself differently. I gazed into the reflective rectangle above my sink and wondered. I saw a girl of seventeen with a broad forehead red-brown hair with natural highlights, green eyes, a full bottom lip, and a black v-cut t-shirt. Yet, what did a stranger see?
I tried to imagine myself as a stranger. I tried to envision myself as a girl or boy walking down the street. Possibly in a city or small town, walking swiftly along the old cracked sidewalk occasionally bumping shoulders with other people on the busy street and maybe I was on my way to school or work. Maybe I was late or maybe early having enough time to stop for a morning coffee. Maybe I would get a donut if I chose to go to that donut shop. Or maybe I just had a quick minuet and would go in get the coffee and go that is if I was not actually running late.
I tried to envision a stranger, who had no connections to me, the girl standing in the mirror on the wall. I imagined someone who had on biases or problems. I figured, as this stranger, I was wearing a black coat or maybe a brown coat. Something that shouted “normal”, nothing that made me stand out. And possibly, I was in a bad mood, having started my day running behind or maybe I just had my morning cup of coffee and was in a great mood. Maybe I did not care. Maybe I was excited to get where I was going or maybe not. Maybe I, the stranger, was not actually going anywhere. Maybe I just wanted some fresh air before I started my day at home all alone. Maybe I was not going home to an empty home or apartment and actually had a family waiting to welcome me back. However, I, the girl in the mirror, would not know. I now was a stranger after all.
Willing myself to hold this picture in my mind, I conjured my seventeen year old self-walking on the sidewalk going in the opposite direction. Maybe with a coat pulled up around me as if trying to shield myself, my heart, my innocent, against the harshness of the world. I thought that maybe my seventeen-year-old self was someone who bumped into the stranger. Maybe this caused me, the stranger, to spar an unfriendly glance that I would shoot in the direction of the particularly bothersome person, who hit me.
Then I, the stranger, would see the short teen huddled in a coat, thinking that she most have been cold. Maybe I would see brown hair missing the red highlights, and not catch the girl looking at me, subsequently missing the green eyes. And perhaps not. Maybe I, the stranger, did not even bother to look at the short person who had gotten in my way as I moved about my life’s bustle and hustle, not caring about the strangers all around me walking on the old cracked sidewalk.
Finally, I sighed and moved from the looking glass and returned to my upside down position on the coach. Never knowing what any of my family members saw in the movie, and never knowing what that stranger I bumped on the street really saw when looking at me. I guess that you never really know anyways. All I guess you really could do was try to get a new view on the same old movie and try to imagine what others saw playing on the big screen. All you really could do is sit upside down on a coach. ‘Cause in reality, you never can truly look from the outside in at yourself.