WHY PRETTY?

Song Recommendation: Michael Jackson - Butterflies

For a long time, it felt as if there was nothing.

Not sure if I was born that way or if something hurt me so deeply and I never noticed.

Even now, I can’t be sure.

I was five.

I felt numb, and I found it intolerable. I didn’t wish to feel something because of this; rather, I wished for complete absence. Of course, I felt annoyed when I couldn’t tie my shoelaces, scared when my dad came home, and embarrassed when it was lunchtime at school— I remember so. I wasn’t some kid without feelings, if that even exists; it’s just that life felt numb. So utterly dull, gray, and numb. All of those emotions were so superficial—I knew deep down, I didn’t really care about any of it. I didn’t care for being alive.

- shin

I couldn’t understand the point of life, and a child that young doesn’t really know the concept of death. It wasn’t something to fear, but it wasn’t something I wished for either. I just didn’t want to exist. Nothing was exciting, and there was nothing to look forward to. There was pain, and there was a hallway I could look down into— I could see exactly where I would end up in years to come. I saw my mother and somehow, I understood, to a certain extent, that that would be me. A gift I didn’t want.

That was the first and only time I truly tried to leave this world. At five years old, it was bound to fail, and here I am, 19 years later, with a dumb scar that gets smaller and smaller every year. I can’t say life got any easier after that—in fact, it was the opposite. But I did find something. Something that, for the first time, made the numbness fade away.

That church*. It was breathtaking. Something stirred inside me—maybe my stomach or my heartbeat—but I could feel it when something was truly beautiful. Was it cliché? It felt like time stood still for a moment, and for that second, life wasn’t dull at all. It wasn’t about religion—at least not to a five year old. But that building was beautiful, absolutely so. I could use a hundred different words to describe how stunning it was, but at that time, all I could think, over and over, was ‘pretty.’ A two-hour service would leave any kid that age bored out of their mind, maybe even crying or throwing a fit to go home. But I wasn’t bored. I sat on those hard, cold wooden benches, looking around and up at the ceiling. Everything was so pretty, and I could’ve stared at that ceiling incessantly.

Perhaps it was because nothing so beautiful had ever been placed in front of my eyes. But after seeing it, it felt like my eyes were finally opened. I started to care, to look around, to pay attention to my life. I searched everywhere for 'pretty.' Maybe I was obsessed. But my eyes were opened, and I could see it all now. Even walking down a dirt-filled path with garbage piling up on the sides, I spotted a small purple bead—a bead to anyone else, but to me, it was 'pretty.'

Pretty was everywhere if I searched for it. Sometimes, maybe because I was so obsessed, pretty was there even when it wasn’t. And that’s how I’ve lived my life ever since. If I lose sight of it, I’m afraid I’ll go numb again.

*Expiatory Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Leon, Guanajuato