When do i find myself?

Another day and here we go again, I wake up, shower, have breakfast, brush my teeth, and head out. The weather forecast said today would be sunny and milder, and it didn't lie; the description matches perfectly. After yesterday's rain – something I didn't see, I was so tired that I fell asleep before witnessing a drop of water – it surprises me how clear the sky is. The city seems to have had a makeover after yesterday; everything is so alive, so clean, and the smell of pollution isn't as heavy on the nose.

I arrive at the university promptly – as always – Mr. Skyle only teaches our class and is about to retire. He looks radiant, with a sparkle in his eyes – I guess the relief of not having to endure a bunch of people for a long time. "I'M FREE, I'M FREE", that's definitely what's going through his head – he enters the room carrying his briefcase, which shines like a piano, takes his seat, opens his laptop, and begins to speak:

–To everyone present, good morning. I would like to inform you that I've already corrected all the reports you sent me. I have good news and bad news for some of you.

I can already predict: "Daany Starstrock with the worst grade in the class. He'll be a failure; I knew it the moment I saw you walking through the door on the first day of class". Before he starts speaking, I pay attention to a figure sitting above me to my left; it was the boy with the blonde streak whom, until today – only one day has passed since I saw him – I didn't know the name of. I return my focus to Mr. Skyle, who then begins:

–Annabeth McGregor, congratulations, 5 points – the report was worth 5 points –, Alice Fermsburing, 5 points. Bianca Campbell, 4.5 points. Bruno Allen, 4.5 points...

I'm a millisecond away from knowing my grade; I feel my heart beating so hard, my legs growing cold, my lips becoming as pale as a corpse's. I don't need a high grade to pass Mr. Skyle's class, but I always build up expectations, even if the result isn't satisfactory.

–...Daany Starstrock, 5 points...

It felt like a ton had been lifted off my shoulders; I've never felt such relief in all my life. Even though I don't need it, I like having good grades. Sometimes I think it's to compensate for my social reality at college; yes, I'm poor, but not a bad student. Even after hearing my grade, I continue to pay attention to Mr. Skyle because I want to know the name of the darn boy who, for some reason, seems familiar to me.

– ...Eric Devon, 3.75 points – I wonder if he's related to Mr. Devon –. Judith Jones, 4 points... Levi LineMoon – at that moment I feel a pressure on my skull, as if I were about to faint, a wave of old memories runs through my entire brain and body –, 4 points...

I hear behind me, coming from the boy with the blonde streak, the following celebration: "Nice". Soon I realized, Levi LineMoon is his name. I catch myself thinking: Loftheaven is a very large city and very far from Downcity, it couldn't be... – I repeat this almost incessantly – it couldn't be, it couldn't be...

Right after Mr. Skyle finishes announcing the grades, he continues:

– For the last assignment of the term. I believe, for some of you graduating, I want you to pair up and do a project on the last topic covered: "How to manage information in the workplace" – he writes on the board behind him –. This assignment will be worth 10 points, the highest grade in my class, and it will be trivial to complement the grade of some of you. You're dismissed – he says, finishing all the chatter and heading towards the exit. Mr. Skyle's classes last no longer than 30 minutes; I think he, like us, is fed up with everything and everyone. I heard he's been teaching for over 30 years, so who wouldn't be fed up –.

I head towards the exit and can't stop thinking, Levi LineMoon, it couldn't be... Not in this huge city and not in my class... I soon arrive at the cafeteria, I don't eat anything, I just sit and wait to see if he'll sit at the same table, like yesterday. However, I don't see any sign of him around here. I leave with these thoughts still circling my mind, questioning myself every second.

I have to be at work by noon; now in the last semester of college, I start later and leave earlier, so I have plenty of time. I spend an hour and a half waiting until it's time to start my internship; during this idle time, I go to a park right next to the tall building where I work. The entire building belongs to Mr. Devon's company; I wonder how many buildings he owns and how much each one must cost – if you add up all the value of these properties, he could definitely buy Downcity and everyone who lives there –.

Sometimes I lie down on a bench, nap until it's time to start working. On other occasions, I take the opportunity to read a book, while at other times, I simply mess around on my laptop. This time, I was determined. I had to find out if my suspicion was correct, if that boy really was who I thought he was. First, I log into the student portal, where I find the course I'm taking; I immediately think:

"If he's taking the same course as me, he'll be here."

Sure enough, there was his name, Levi LineMoon. My eyes couldn't believe what they were seeing, the profile picture, the same familiar face from class; the same blonde streak, the one that haunts my mind.

I click on his profile, and in the chat tab, it says:

"Levi LineMoon is online."

I think twice before sending a message; but I don't hesitate and soon I send:

Hello, I'm Daany Starstrock, we're in the same technology management class, Mr. Skyle's class. He assigned that final project for completion, and I was wondering if you'd like to do it with me?

Immediately after sending it, I instantly regret it and keep questioning myself:

"Why did I send that message? What if he says no? What if he doesn't even remember me? Why did I do this? STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!!!"

These thoughts haunt me relentlessly, and for a second, I feel like I'm going to collapse completely. I'm in the middle of a public park; countless people pass by here. My job is right next door; what will they say after I have a psychotic breakdown? I try to calm myself down, and for a fleeting moment, everything passes. There's no more anguish and anxiety... calm, just calm.

I've had these mood swings since I was a child; I've been to numerous doctors, but they all said: "It's just a phase, it'll pass". I wonder at what age it will pass. I close the student portal tab without checking if there's a response from Levi; I shut down the laptop and immediately start reading a book, Stephen King's Different Seasons, I'm at the part about the Fall From Innocence – The Body. I was heavily influenced by the movie Stand By Me (1986), an adaptation of the book I'm reading. I'm a die-hard fan of the book and the movie; I'm very attached to the events of my childhood and adolescence, and I have a deep personal connection with the story of the book and movie.

I feel like I've never outgrown those phases; I think, because my adult life is depressing, I seek refuge in memories of the past. Levi LineMoon has to do with this; if my suspicions are correct, he who is now my classmate in college; in the past, he was a great friend of mine. I was surprised because Loftheaven is over 498 miles away from Downcity, and rarely does anyone who leaves there end up here.

When I was a child, specifically at six years old, I met a boy with brown hair, eyes the same color as his hair, and a detail I could never forget, the only blonde streak dancing amidst the hair. Levi LineMoon, that was his name; I had never seen him in Downcity before. It was my first day at the new school, and I was totally lost amidst all those unfamiliar people. I had seated myself in a corner of the room waiting for the time to leave when a boy shorter than me came up to me and said:

– Can I sit with you?

Soon I, a completely lost and cornered child, found refuge in that boy I had never seen before. From then on, we became what some might call "inseparable friends". Levi and I were like peas and carrots, cloud and rain, sun and moon, all complementary things that existed, we were. We never parted ways, not for a moment; everyone said that if we were ever apart, one of us would die or both.

We stayed "inseparable" like that until the last year before middle school, after which he wasn't the Levi I knew anymore. He had made new friends, I don't blame him, as he didn't belong to me, just as I didn't belong to him, but something strange happened. He acted like a jerk to everyone, the typical teenager who bullied others for no reason. Levi was playing against his own team because we – unfortunately – were the ones who were bullied. Both he and I were too small for our age, until we were thriteen years old, when he easily grew about twelve inches, while I only grew seven.

I didn't recognize him in the hallways, just as he didn't recognize me. I searched deep into his eyes for that person who was once my friend, but there was emptiness, only emptiness... After we graduated from school, that phase of being a bully and a jerk had passed, and he became a mature man, with the attitudes of a man, but he couldn't just reappear and try to reclaim everything that was lost, so I just moved on and positioned myself where I am now.

But now, this "skeleton in the closet" has reappeared and revived everything that had been "erased" inside me. The little Daany cries and throws tantrums trying to get the attention of the little Levi that exists within my current college mate. It's time for me to start my job; I didn't see the time passing, I think that when I'm floating in the clouds of my mind, time is relative.

I didn't see the time passing during my internship, and it's FINALLY time to leave. I focused as much as possible on all my tasks – if Mr. Devon were here to see my work today, he would definitely make me CEO –, all this to avoid remembering that I had sent him a message. I have a serious problem of building expectations in everything, and I know I can be disappointed when the result is not as expected, but that's how I live my life.

I head towards the exit, and it's the same as always; clock out, walk, catch the bus, home. I arrive home unable to resist the urge to grab the laptop and check for a response, but I restrain myself; I take a shower, put on clean clothes – they smell so good, I didn't go wrong with my new fabric softener – and eat something – I need to eat better, I'm just eating junk food –. I sit in the "officeroom" – the room that is an office – and open the laptop. My hands are cold, I feel a cold wave descending from my head and going to all parts of my body; I open the student portal and go straight to the chat, which informs me: You have a new message. I think: either Mr. Skyle saying that everyone has passed and no longer needs to attend classes, or Levi has replied. And well, my last alternative was correct; Levi LineMoon had replied to me. It was strange, well, it had been years since we talked, and that 14-year-old boy – the last time I talked to him – no longer existed. He was a man now, for whom I was just a stranger who happened to be a college classmate. In his message, he wrote:

Hello Daany, how are you? It will be a pleasure to work on this project with you, and since it's the last one of the term, it would be good to start soon to finish quickly.

When are you available?

I now feel a wave of fear and sadness running through my body, as I mentioned before, the issue of expectations. I hoped he would remember me a little, remember everything we went through and lived. I wonder if my passage through people's lives is so vague that years become minutes in the void of forgetfulness. I feel like crying every moment, but I don't. I just reply:

I'm doing well, thank you. I'm available on weekends, I'm free on Saturday. Is that okay with you?

As quickly as I opened the student portal, I closed it at the same speed or even faster. Frustrated – another note to refresh the memory –.

The dictionary defines frustration as:

Action of frustrating.

Psychoanalysis State of the individual who, for not having satisfied a fundamental desire or tendency, feels repressed: frustration complex.

According to Sigmund Freud, "repression" is a defense mechanism of the brain to prevent painful or unacceptable mental contents from reaching consciousness. It's a way for the brain to protect itself from things that could be traumatizing. Did I "repress" Levi's memory? No, I couldn't, I couldn't do that, Levi was my little world, and I was his little world. But I think I was repressed in his memory, as a way of not bringing all that past to the surface.

Here I am now, repressed in the mind of someone who was once so important to me. I wonder: When do I find myself? When will I find myself in Levi's memory? When will he remember me? And if he never remembers again? Does he remember, but doesn't want to talk about it? Am I that forgettable?

I lie down on the bed not feeling, feeling like I'm a puppet and my mind is just observing everything happen and wondering: Where did it go wrong?