tiffchany.

Everyone that shouldn’t have forgotten me has, so everyone that need not remember me must.

I want my name in ink, printed in history books: Tiffany Chan.

As long as I’m fantasizing, my name is Tiffany Gosling or Tiffany Hemsworth. In all honesty, my ideal name would be Tiffany Cabebe. 

Point being, I want to do something important. I’m not the kind of person you remember. I don’t have a shining personality. I’m not a people-person at all. I don’t have any exceptional talents. I’m in the background of one of those vague memories that fade away. Someone you really didn’t know, or maybe you did.

Ultimately, I am insignificant in the scheme of things. 

Friends will know the girl that sat in the sidelines praising them, admiring them, envying them. She was never the center of their circles, never chosen and invited. Sometimes she got tired of it and ran to others for her own salvation, but she always ran back. 

Acquaintances will know the girl they’re glad they never knew. Maybe they did, once upon a time, until they ran away, whispering about the depressing bag of shit, unable and unwilling to help herself. She was psycho. She wasn’t happy like the rest of them. And when she pretended to be, they tore down her flimsy facade and were happy to scrutinize all weakness and insecurity to make themselves feel superior.

Teachers will know the friend of their favorite. Loud, never concealing her true nature, as children often do. She had strong opinions and spoke her mind, stubborn, not agreeable, mean even, and absolutely never the citizen of the month. 

Ultimately, their memories will fail, and I will be but few pictures in a dusty yearbook. 

Family will know me from prolonged proximity, nothing more. I was never and never will be the favorite child, niece, or cousin. That place has been taken, and he sits on a pedestal. 

He might remember an obsessive little girl, if he remembers anything at all. “SoCal chick” he called her. She secretly loved him, but as far as childhood romance goes, it was no secret. She would say she gave up, but would always end up sending another long text. It was just unhealthy. One day she stopped. Her only traces seen on Christmases, and maybe summers, until they lead their own lives, and she disappears forever.
Ultimately, his memory will fail, and I will be but a few pictures in a childhood photo album.

So I want to do something. I don’t want to be forgotten. I crave immortality even if it means dying young. In fact, I welcome the idea. I’ll trade history books for newscasts and sympathy.

Maybe instead, they’ll remember a girl who died young. “She had so much potential,” they’d say. They’d never say for what or why. They’ll never know why she jumped off that beautiful red bridge she’d always dreamed of.
Her words so fresh in their minds, she’d talked about living by that bridge, by unrequited love that was her only sustenance. 

Ultimately, another young girl will die, and I will be yesterday’s sob story.
I suppose I’ll have to settle for history books.