In the end, does anyone really care?
Looking around in the train, traveling through Barcelona, I realize that no one cares who you are, why you are there, nor where you are going.
Next to me a father and his son are playing a game. I don't think they realize they are making so much noise, but hearing them talk excitedly makes me long for that kind of relationship with my parents.
Instead, I was sent to Spain. As if a trip could make up for long hours playing by yourself in your room, being the only kid in saxophone recitals not to have his parents there, and to be the only person ever to attend a family picnic- without the parents.
Besides, the trip is not because of that. It's because I am weary and tired and nearing the end of my life, strange as it may seem, since I am just sixteen.
Some candles burn low and a long time, and some burn for a while and then go out. My candle was blue, signifying sadness and melancholy, but it has been shinning brightly. It will soon go out.
I have lived a sad life. What other kind of life can you have, if you are practically an only child, who mostly has not known his parents, and who already knows he is dying at sixteen?
I am determined to finish my life with a happy ending. This is why I asked to go to Spain. A hot country, with plenty of culture and many places to go visit. With beaches. In Europe. What more could you ask for?
Plenty. Family, health, love... are just a few of the things I would like to have but have never really been able to experience fully.
I did have an older brother, but we never got along, because he was ten years older than me and had realized what a sad kind of life it was right away, and moved away as soon as he could. Shane and I never got to know each other that well, and now I'm certain we won't. I don't plan to return to America. For that matter, I'm not sure he even knows that I am taking this trip.
I am staying with a kind family who has done all they can to make me feel welcome. I have tried to be friendly and nice but I think I must have forgotten how to do that. For the most part I spend my days in Barcelona and I return late, have supper and go to bed. Actually I think I am avoiding the family. It hurts to see them talk excitedly and hug, when I never got to do that.
Lately I have been wandering around the city. Sometimes I sit on a bench in Plaza Catalunya and watch the pigeons, other times I go to Tibidabo, get on a few rollercoasters and try to feel a bit of a thrill. I never do. I think I've lost the ability to have feelings. I should have been sad when the doctor told me about my prognosis, but I wasn't. I shrugged and said "okay". I should have been happy when I found out I could go to the country of my choice. But I just went to pack my bags.
Deep down inside I want to feel something, and I know if I try hard enough, I might.
And I think I am starting to feel something now, as I watch the rain pour onto the water by the statue in the middle of a small pond in Pavelló Alemany, in Montjuïc. The statue is of a person with his arms over his head, as if defending himself from the rain. I have been sitting here for a long time. The scene gives me peace, or at least it did until it began to pour.
Tears fall down my cheeks. I have triumphed, I have managed to feel something. And what I feel is that I really don't want to die. That doesn't really matter any more. What echoes in my head is that I have finally managed to feel.
I just want to feel real love
Fill the home that I live in
[...]
I don't want to die
But I ain't keen on living either
Before I fall in love
I'm preparing to leave her
I scare myself to death
That's why I keep on running
Before I've arrived
I can see myself coming
Feel - Robbie Williams
Feel by Estrelleta
