They all look different: hoodies, blouses, tank tops, t-shirts, one guy in a brown corduroy jacket with dark denim patches on the backs of the elbows - making a fashion statement with their differences, but the message within the statement being the same:
- I need to be me.
- Will I be accepted for who I am?
- Does anyone love me exactly as I am?
- Will I make it in this cold, spiritless, misunderstanding world?
The worry lies under the common countenance of nonchalance.
Who me?
I don't care what you think.
I'm cool regardless.
Like their zits, some covered carefully with makeup, some lonely - the first pinpricks on otherwise flawless skin - the first break in the perfection of youth - the first bubble of the world's imposition on the innocence of which we all are born.
My eyes move over these youthful faces, their common coolness, their common yearning to fit in, their common zits - new to the landscape of their skins...
My eyes move over these youthful faces, resting on the face of a middle aged woman. No zits on her face but the signs of age - pits, just a few, where zits had been in her erstwhile days of hopefulness. She looks tired. And it's just morning. She is slumped in her seat. Staring straight ahead. Mind elsewhere ... oblivious to the frenzy of hope around her, and the life abundant waiting to spring forth from those faces ... this lady looks tired ... having long forgotten her own days of hopefulness, believing herself now to be not loved, not accepted, making it in this cold, spiritless, misunderstanding world ... yet wondering whether the making it she defined really was a making it. Or whether it, like her ancient pit, represented a long lost hope from a far away youth, a hope bursting forth in the common hormonal zit.
