it’s a sad kind of happy when i’m with you. i love being around you, you make me smile and laugh. you make me happy.
in all honesty, i think i love you. i really think i do.
we’re friends, we talk, we hang out sometimes. i like that.
photo credit: pinning.com
sometimes you confuse me, though. sometimes i’ll think you feel the same way about me, but then you’ll ignore me the next day.
in all honesty, you’re confusing, so confusing.
but, that’s part of who you are.
i try to understand you, because there’s so much to understand. you’re talented in so many things, but you doubt yourself. you are loved by so many people, but you deny it. you say no one likes you, but you know that i’m here.
i’m here sitting by you right now. you’re looking out the window. we’re listening to music on your phone. i have the left ear bud, you have the right.
i’m happy right now, i’m with you, but it’s a sad kind of happy
we’re listening to love songs. sometimes, i pretend that the songs are a message. i pretend the songs are you telling me you love me…. but we both know that’s not true.
you told me about your grandma and it made me sad for you and her.
wow my heart is beating quickly… get up!! quick!!
i put new posters up in my room and they’re supposed to be empowering, but now my room looks like a stranger’s room and that’s just not right.
the shirt with the strawberry on it makes my arms look weird.
photo credit: pinterest.com
what you think sounds like art, i think it sounds like garage punk which is art, but the type i wanted to think you liked.
champagne supernova?? what does that even mean Oasis? what does it mean?! is it a collection of two different words or is it a phrase or a something only someone at NASA would understand or none of those?? what does it mean good? god, what does it mean?
i have a lot to do that i put off until 9 pm, but if i do it all i won’t get enough sleep which means tomorrow at around 9 pm i will start feeling anxious, which just won’t do tomorrow.
“how many special people change? how many lives were lived estranged?”
i shouldn’t have done that and i knew i shouldn’t do it before i did it, but then, i did it and it wasn’t worth it, i shouldn’t have done it.
it’s 10:45 pm, so it’s inevitable that tomorrow no matter what, at around 9 pm, i will start feeling anxious; i’m pretty much screwed.
it’s ok that you’re not around very much anymore, but i miss you and that makes it feel like it’s not okay. but i would never want to make you feel bad, therefore, it’s all okay.
i slept for 30 minutes today in the middle of the day, which was weird because i don’t sleep during the day but i wished i could have slept for longer at the time, but i couldn’t because i had to practice speaking spanish that doesn’t even help because i forget how to say grass every single time no matter how many times i write it down.
at this point, i’ll just stay up all night because it’s inevitable that tomorrow, no matter what, at around 9 pm i will start feeling anxious.
When I was around six years old, I remember my parents slowly walking up to me in the morning and giving me a hug. They kneeled down beside me and said in a soft, slow, sad, and apologetic voice: “I’m sorry, honey. The raccoons got Mrs. Frizzel last night.”
I sobbed for hours. I was sad for days. I made my parents have a funeral. My tears fell to the ground as we buried my dead chicken. My parents bought a chick that I raised and loved, but I still missed Mrs. Frizzel.
When I was eight, Fluffy and Ginger passed away. My parents broke the news to me in the same way. I cried the same way as I had before. I got two more chicks.
When I was twelve, my parents again approached me with the same sad tone and told me that that a couple of our chickens died in their sleep. I didn’t cry as much when they died, partially because I was old enough to understand that everything dies of old age at some point. It was much more bearable. I would be sad, but not sobbing like I had done in the past.
Today, I came home and asked if he bought food at the store. He said no. Something happened, so he had to come home. “What I happened?” I asked.
“The neighbors dog got into our yard and into the chicken coop,” he said with a flat tone.
“You stopped right, the chickens are okay?”
Photo Credit: Pinterest
“No,” he said. “They are dead, all but three are dead.” He said it with the same flat tone.
He just told me straight up, assuming I wouldn’t be sad. No soft, slow, sad, or apologetic voice. He patted my back and walked away.
I went outside. The corpses were gone. All that remained was feathers.
Eight year old me popped in to my mind. The funeral for Mrs. Frizzel. My parents stroking my back and telling me everything was going to be okay.
There would be no funeral, my dad had put their limp bodies in the trash before I came home. There would be no comfort from my parents. Fifteen year olds don’t cry when their chickens die.
I’m shouldn’t be sad. I’m too old to be sad. But, I’m sad.
I remembered holding the chickens when they were less than a week old. Moving them to the big coop when they were old enough. Hand-feeding them mealworms and celebrating the day that they laid their first egg.
I raised them. They are dead now.
If I was a child I would be sobbing in my parents arms. Now, I’m sobbing alone.
I know if I went to them they would comfort me, but there’s an age where you need to accept reality on your own.
Being treated like a child is now nonexistent. Just like my chickens.
When I was little, if I had a lot of homework, my parents would tell me I could do it and tell me I could have a cookie when I finished. Now, when I complain about my homework, they say lots of homework is part of growing up.
When I was little, my parents were by me at every moment to guide me through life. Now, I am old enough where I need to handle things on my own.
When I was younger, my parents could fix everything. They could make everything feel better. In their arms, I was safe.
Yes, the death of my chickens is part of the reason I’m crying. But, there’s more to the tears running down my cheek.
No matter how much I want to believe it, my parents can’t fix everything. As much as I want it to, they can’t hug me and make me not be sad. As desperately as I want to deny it, my parents can’t protect me anymore.
I don’t know why all of this came from a dog breaking into my chicken coop, but it did…
Rest in peace Lucky, Trouble, Darwin, Lemon, Pepper, Oreo, and Henry. I may not be a child anymore, but I still love you and miss you.
For the past week, I’ve been waiting to hear from my first choice college about whether I’d get in or not.
The answer I received was not the one I was expecting.
I wasn’t sure if I was expecting an acceptance. The acceptance rate is 46%, so I thought I had a chance. But, then again, I was an out-of-state student and my SAT scores were below the average.
I checked my portal every day hoping for an answer, but then I got an email.
An email telling me I was waitlisted and I don’t even know what to think of it.
On one hand, I still have a chance of getting in, even though the chances of ever getting off the waitlist at any school or program are exceptionally slim. I still had a chance and maybe that was enough hope to hold on to.
On the other hand, it felt like a slap in the face. You’re good enough, but not as good as the other students admitted, not as good as your friends who got admitted while you’re stuck re-reading the words from the email over and over again, telling you to change your plans, your fantasies of how the next four years of your life were going to play out are not going to happen. But, if they don’t come here, we might choose you.
I broke the news to my sister, my aunt, and any friend I could talk too. They all said it was okay and that maybe it wasn’t meant to be.
I hate when people say that and, in that moment, I couldn’t even think about agreeing with them, but maybe they’re right. There’s always an option to potentially transfer or the chance I’ll love the school I end up attending more than I thought. The U.S. is full of amazing schools and I have other top choices I’m still waiting to hear from. So maybe something will work out that turns out to be better for me in the long run, but I’ll just have to wait and see.
People come and go so fast. It’s almost like they’re here one day and gone the next. With a blink of an eye, a bullet is in their brain, a tumor is in their body, a rope is around their neck, lethal amounts of Codeine is in their system. You try to save them, but they’re already gone.
I beat myself up and ask over and over again: what could I have done to help you?
Photo credit: drawingpenciled.com
Why didn’t I realize? Looking back now it seems so obvious. I could have done so much to save you.
A text? A call? A drive up to LA? Would that have kept your heart beating?
Well, here’s the answer. No, I couldn’t have saved you, even as much as I wanted too. You may have had a pulse and air going through your lungs, but you were already gone.
It comes to a point where a person is faded to a point of no recovery, no matter how much you do, the sadness inside of them can never be erased.
You can tell so much by looking in someones eyes. Looking at your most recent photos, your eyes said it all. The color, the joy, the happiness, it was gone. Now, you are gone.
I blame myself a lot.
But sometime I’m going to have to realize, no matter how much I deny it, there is nothing I could have done.
It’s something we all do, but it seems as though no one talks about it. There’s no step-by-step books, no instructions. Nothing to guide you, nobody that tells you exactly what to do. Yet, everyone acts like they know everything.
No one admits that they mess up, that they don’t know what to do or that they are grasping at straws like the rest of us. It’s scary to admit I don’t know what I am doing because I feel as though I’ll be standing alone.
I’m scared that in August I will be living on my own. I’m scared of being on the other side of the country from my mom. I’m scared of having to figure most things out on my own.
I’m also so excited to start my life. I’m excited to be in control of what I do. Most of all, I am excited to show the world who I am and see where it takes me.
but, we both know deep down that we will most likely never be fully okay.
i ask myself all the time… what could i have done better?
how could i have helped you, made you see what i saw in you?
you sat on the edge for a while, staring over the ledge at the busy freeway. i stood starring at you from below, sobbing.
in your mind, there was nothing to live for, nothing worth living for.
live for me, i thought. live for me. please live for me.
it’s selfish, but i needed you, in all honesty, i still do.
i loved you then, i love you now.
you didn’t jump because you knew that if you did, it wouldn’t kill you. you’d survive the fall and, when you woke up, you’d be sent to a place far worse than the center we were at.
i lived with you for two months in a residential treatment center for eating disorders until we were both discharged.
we suffered together, we cried together, but we laughed together too.
we’d talk in spanish complaining about the staff, we’d talk about boys, we’d talk about all the things we’d do once we got out of center for discovery (the treatment center we were at), and all things we would do together.
at the center, all sharp objects, from knives to pen caps, are locked in a cabinet which only the staff has a key too.
i remember that one night in our room. i heard a noise coming from your side of the room.
the staff who watches us at night had fallen asleep and someone had forgotten to lock away a pen cap.
you lay in bed, a broken pen cap in your hand, and blood on your wrists.
i ran to you and tried to take away the cap. you pushed me away, i lunged at you again and took it.
i grabbed your arms and forced them around me. you sobbed, begging for the cap. i could almost hear you internally begging to me, “end this please, end me please.”
you kept on saying please in between sobs. over and over again: “please.”
“shhh,” i whispered crying. “shhh”.
you were seventeen at the time, i was thirteen.
i was a ninety-pound, anorexic, thirteen-year-old girl living in a metal hospital.
you were a bulimic, suicidal, seventeen-year-old girl living in a mental hospital.
i held you for what felt like hours, i hugged you until you stopped crying.
you’re nineteen.
i don’t see you much anymore, we talk sometimes though.
you were sent back to the center twice because you relapsed.
you seem better now though, you seem happy now, but i worry a lot.
Photo Credit: peakviewbh.com
you’re nineteen. if you go back to your old ways, you’re parents can’t legally force you back to the center, you’re an adult.
if you wanted to, you can find a bigger ledge, one that could end it all.
i can’t protect you anymore, i’m not there to grab the pen cap.
you are happy now, but we both know how fast things can change.
i hope you stay happy forever. please stay happy forever.
if you are ever sad, please tell me.
thirteen years old in a treatment center, fifteen years old in my room writing this, twenty years old wherever i’ll be then, no matter what age or what place, i will always be here to hold you.
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