Fantastic Beasts and Friends

So on Saturday I went and caught up with one of my closest friends over a nice dose of Fantastic Beasts. This friend had moved into the city at the end of year 8 (we’re both in year 10 at the moment). We’ve known each other since kindergarten (when we were 5) so any chance to meet and catch up is really valuable to both of us.

We both caught the train to a midpoint between our two locales which happened to be a shopping centre. We watched the latest instalment of the Fantastic Beasts franchise (good movie though the ending is frustrating) and caught up with each other’s lives while doing a spot of Christmas shopping (well I did, she just patiently went along with it as I spent thirty seconds in one shop and then moved on to the next one). As we’d both recently gone on overseas trips (see her post here), we talked about that and it was a really good experience.

Just before we separated to go our opposing ways home a woman asked me for some money to buy food. I gave her $3 as it was all the money I had that wasn’t a huge summed note (it wasn’t that I was being selfish, but I’m always very iffy about giving people large sums of money – particularly those I’ve never met before) and it reminded me of a goal I’d said to myself I’d like to do.

This goal is that I’ll take a friend into the city and we’ll ask a homeless person to have dinner with us. I don’t know why this is a goal, but I feel compelled to help those people who can’t necessarily help themselves – however – in a fashion that somewhat aligns with my rather introverted personality.

How I feel as an introvert.

I don’t know what I want to be when I finish school, but I do want to help people. Now, I’m not saying that the woman I gave such a small amount of money was disadvantaged, I don’t know her story, but I do know that if I wasn’t on a time crunch to get on my train home I would’ve liked to buy her some food myself.

This reaction, I feel, reveals something about my personality. I’ve always known that I like giving people stuff, from the satisfaction and bubbly feelings I get when I make someone a birthday card, but I also like it when I feel like I’ve contributed in some way to make someone’s day better, especially from the ways I’ve reacted in the past to saying something that offends the person I’m talking to (I know I can be very sarcastic without thinking and it hurts to know or at least think that I’ve hurt someone, it hurts more than I’m willing to admit to most people), or when I feel like I’ve had a successful conversation with someone, as most of the time I feel as close to being socially awkward one can get without being so.

These achievements, though minute, make me feel like I can contribute to the world in a positive way, something I need to remind myself frequently of, especially in my low times.

I know this kind of turned into a rant toward the end, so if you made it this far I congratulate you,

God bless,

– KT & Bea