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.

Meant For Greatness

Roses on my porch (C)Benjamin Leon 2018

I remember seeing these roses and immediately pulled out my camera; my hands were shaky but I managed to stabilize them and afterwards move the camera along with the roses a little because they were being rocked by the wind caressing the plant and I did not want a blurry picture. I decided to write this article precisely after snapping a picture today, a picture of a small rosebud and two roses behind it in their latter development stages. Some of you will immediately understand where this article is trying to get you, but for those who don't, here's what I thought of the photograph after looking at it for a while while I sat by myself inside of this lonely coffee shop experiencing a mild migraine.

Love after the "Love" of your life.

My Dyzplastic Android Figurine "staring out the window" (c) Benjamin Leon, 2018.

It's really hard to write about this very specific subject because it has always been a very important part of my life. I have experienced a lot of heartbreaks in the past, whether or not me being the responsible of getting to the point of ending the relationship with my dates. 

Please, please heed this little advice snippet: Love yourself first before attempting any sort of sentimental relationship with someone, be it new or the first.

You Got This

A Beautiful Tennessean Day (C)Benjamin Leon 2018

As I was sitting outside my relatives' house on a beautiful Tennessean spring-almost-summer day listening to birds singing, looking at a couple of Robins jumping through the grass looking for something to eat, a mother and a father dove carrying twigs to finish their nest, the wind gently caressing each blade of grass while the strong sun rays were shining through the clouds on a beautiful blue sky, when I thought to myself: "I've really come a long way since it happened". It has been exactly 579 days since at the time of writing this article. "Maybe I need to help others overcome their hardships" I realized as those lines took my train of thought hostage for that brief moment.


"Social platforms were the perfect medium to get to people, because you do not need to approach them physically; especially for me, someone with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In no way is it an easy task to approach someone to either talk, help or ask for something over a counter."