Everyone has a good and a bad side... and so what?

♪ You can't keep secrets from me ♪

♪ 'Cause I can always see it ♪

♪ With my X-ray eyes! ♪

♪ I got a brand new way of looking at life ♪

♪ An altogether different visual spectrum ♪

♪ Sometimes photons behave like a wave ♪

♪ But they're particles when you reflect 'em ♪

~ Phineas and Ferb (Song: “X-ray Eyes”)

                                                      Source: RottenTomatoes.com

Remember those X-ray glasses from that Phineas and Ferb episode entitled “No More Funny Business?” Imagine if we can see through a person but rather than seeing their skeleton, or how their organs are arranged, What if we can see through their personalities? What type of person someone is? And then we would know how to react or behave around that person.

When I was a senior in high school, I had a friend who convinced me that people have two sides, one good and one bad and that nobody has only one. She used to say “lalabas din ang baho niyan” a Filipino counterpart of ‘showing true colors’ but the word-by-word translation is “his true stench will come out” expecting that everyone has skeletons in their closet and or something up their sleeves. This friend is no doubt very bold, hard to read, sure of herself, responsible, and…scary, but we get along, however, I was scared of her, you will never know what’s on her mind, and could sometimes go overboard with scary pranks. She knows what she wants and she can get it, she’s also sure of what she doesn’t want and will make no effort in getting it, even if it would be for the collective good. 

We were opposites and as I can be a little (very) gullible, I took what she said in mind and saw people as this dichotomy of an angel and a devil. Which affected my trust in people, making me very skeptical of every person that I talk to. Scrutinizing every move and wondering what the reason behind their every behavior is. Like I’m Sigmund Freud looking at something and relating it to certain genitalia. Look a pencil! Hmmm… that’s got to mean something.

There was once this girl in my class who was quiet and reserved. Often you’ll see her in the corner of the room by the window, reading her Y.A. book that seems to be changing every week. Although she may seem to like being alone, her aura doesn’t seem like the brooding type that makes you want to stay out of her way. If an aura emits color rather than a feeling, her’s would be white with a slight hue of pale yellow. She has the power to make you want to just happily keep your distance and at the same time, has this strong power that lets everyone in her distance gravitate towards her. Her friends are an example, she may bother her whilst in the middle of reading but she’ll still give a smile and politely nod and listen. 

Within a group meeting, she participates and joins in with the laughing, sometimes even participating, adding jokes and remarks. With group projects and performances, you’ll expect her to have the least participation or to just stand shyly at the back, but in contrast to that, she switches her eyes smile, and curved lips into a line with a straight stare as she delivers her line for a skit or discusses her report.             

She seems alright? Right? But my sixteen-year-old self begs to differ, there’s got to be something behind that facade. “it’s fake!” my brain claimed. 

I waited, for her to be angry, even if sometimes it was evident that she was being taken for granted. When she lost a loved one and became the talk of the insincere crowd, she doesn’t say anything, she doesn’t change. Like the penguins from the movie Madagascar, smile and nod, smile and nod. 

She walked past my seat once. my seatmate and I remember being graced by a pleasant smell trail behind her like she wore a cape that slaps both the nostrils of my seatmate and me as she walked. 

I waited for a stench, a pungent smell, but when I removed my eyes from her and looked around the room, I forgot what I was trying to find. What was it really? Is it even necessary? These are people that I have absolutely no idea who? I only know not even half of the surface of these people’s beings, but then the first thing that I had in mind already is that no matter how good they may seem, my mind would resort to thinking ‘they probably have a bad attitude somewhere deep inside them’, but I wondered, so what? I have it too, sure I don’t show it, but do I have to?

I felt so bad looking at people– looking at the world through this dirty and rotten lens, not vibing with them because of this distraught mindset of seeing non-existent horns bulging out of their forehead and instantly judging them out of nowhere. I developed trust issues because of this, and I don’t blame my old friend for instilling this thought, but I blame myself for not being able to smell my own stench enough to bring me back to the reality that “there are more things to admire in people than to despise.” ~ Albert Camus

I don’t have to dig deeper or clear out the drain, to find gold and to find the smell. It’s in someone’s choice whether to let me in and show their true scents.

I opened my Facebook after a long time, and I saw her again, she has a baby brother now, her smiles are bigger than before, it looks sincere, and she looks healthy and happy. Despite life being hard, she changed not for the worst but for the better, and I admire her for that.