A familiar face across the room

The Moon around 4pm. EST; shot with 8x telephoto lens (c) Benjamin Leon 2018

Today is another regular day; clouds have gathered and we (mom, sister, brother, cousin and me) planned a trip and promptly drove to the mall after getting ready. I sat down on yet another coffee shop after walking around with my family for a while.

So here I am, looking at all these people walking in and out of stores and even the coffee place I'm in right now. At least it's not as crowded as it was earlier and right  now, everyone finished placing and picked their orders,  they are now starting to sit down, the ones that are seated are now sitting and sipping on their hot or iced coffees/teas.

There's a family two tables across and their kids are playing with some plastic dinosaurs, there's a couple of guys with their girlfriends on their laptops.  A lady just walked in, placed her order and now she is waiting for it right there at the counter, and she's constantly looking my direction, sometimes directly at me, from head to toe, while she waits for her order to be ready. I get why she constantly looks this way though, if it were me; I would've stared at the fact that the table looked really small to be honest, as this almost 7 foot tall dude shadowed the table. I did it, just now, I looked back, literally I just moved my eyes to the left and a bit upwards and I saw a smile drawn on her face as a reaction to our glances crossing paths; that awkward 0.5 second indirect smile along with a quick millisecond glance that conveys a "hey" or "what are you lookin' at, creep?". I'll never know what that slight smirk meant. Not because I am lacking the courage to talk to her, but because she left, literally she just walked out right now as she got her order.



This is where I wanted to get to, I don't mind that she left, or that we did not establish an emitter-receptor communication channel, that sort of thing does not bother me anymore. Also, there's this guy across me that got here around the same time I did has been on his laptop and apparently seems really interested in what he's doing on his computer. It looks like he's singing by the way he's moving his lips and moving his head along with whatever he's listening to while typing and occasionally tapping the table with a rhythm.

And as I close my internet search tab for latest technology news, I tell myself, "hey that lady just legit checked me out!" . That's both terrifying and awesome, but please allow me to explain why; It's awesome because well, she seemed like a good person and it lifted my self-esteem a bit, but it was terrifying because well; she was checked me out, not some other dude, ME.

Hot Chocolate for Sky Walker?" the barista called... this guy across me was starting to get up and then the reality truck hit me as I had been looking at myself through a mirror all this time! That is very interesting, to see me again, the actual me; being me, ignoring the invasive imagery that comes along with trauma, trying to have a nice time, asking for some coffee, writing, listening to music, being a huge nerd on the phone and smiling at people, I felt much better. Not quite like before the accident happened but it is much, much different. As you may know by now, just a couple of years ago at the time of writing this article, this dude was shot down by some individuals from two cars as he fled in his V8 mustang a 9mm expansive round went through his skull, survived, got married, filed for asylum status in USA and then got dumped by his wife, had a seizure last month and now  look at him, he... He seemed confident again! That was a familiar face I had not seen since 2016.

My friend, if you're here reading t h e s e very letters right now, you know you've been through a whole darn lot and you just need to take a break from it all and look in the mirror, PLEASE look at that person in the mirror straight in the eye and look how skilled you really are, what a champion you are and how long have you been fighting to get to where you're standing now, just look at you go! A total expert in what you do best; whether it be video games, drawing, music, computers, a walking movie database or someone filled with fun or super unknown facts or maybe you know every tip and trick there is about dog or cat care taking, maybe you're among the best non-magazine-featured photographers of all time and you just have not discovered that yet. It's really something once you sit down and think about it, YOU are really something; you are amazing. you matter, you are great and you are loved.  
God bless you.