When the smiling mask I wear daily begins to crack and draw attention around me, I am often bombarded with the question, "What's wrong?" In order to explain to them the trials that come with being me every day, I have to take them back 11 to 12 years. When I was four, my father left me. I was all alone in a world of shattered fragments of my small, innocent, and unsuspecting heart. The aftermath of this event will forever haunt my every thought, decision, action, and relationship. I still, to this day, do not understand what I did to deserve such emotional turmoil and heartache. It set off a chain reaction that continues even as I write this. I suppose that's why I became an Atheist. What kind of supreme being or deity would allow a four year old girl to be subject to such extensive emotional and psychological damage all for the sake of a "plan" or "destiny"? This damage shall continue to follow me until the day that ends all days.


My mother made therapy appointments for two years. I saw how much my traumatic experience affected her, as well as everyone in my presence. My solution: to hide my emotions. I refused to show how close I was to the breaking point. I established smoke and mirrors to create the illusion of a happy-go-lucky child. I succeeded immeasurably. My mother's family was still holding a grudge regarding her marriage to my father. My father's family was angry with my mother for divorcing my father and not being with him "through thick and thin, good and bad", as stated in their wedding vows. Those vows said "thick and thin", not "alcoholism and unemployment". My father's side was also made up of alcoholics, and they were also incestuous and violent. Therefore, my mother never allowed me among them much. As for my brother, he is 10 years older than myself, so at this time, he was 15 or 16. As a teenager, he was always with friends, at parties, or in the forbidden chamber, also know as his bedroom. All in all, I grew up very quickly and practically became a young adult in a matter of weeks. While some 30 year old ”adults” have trouble taking life seriously, I was contemplating religion and my purpose in the world.


Not only was I missing a father, but also a piece of my heart. I was left feeling rejected, abandoned, and alone. Because of what he put me through, I know longer see him as my father. He is simply an alcoholic man who put a defenseless child through Hell and back. From that day forward. I prayed to the almighty, righteous God to make my pain and anguish bearable. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. None of my tear-filled cries for help were answered. I began doubting the existence of God. It did not seem fair for a four year old child to be tormented while murderers and rapists were out in the world having the time of their lives. I felt like it should be the opposite.


My father leaving was simply the first of many more unfortunate events. My life is a cycle. Nothing ever goes correctly. Everything goes horribly wrong and awry over and over again. No breaks or time-outs. Just endless tragedy. I am not being melodramatic, or untruthful. I constantly endure the sensation of the ice-cold fingers of sorrow and pain around my neck, slowly but surely shortening each breath. The raspy, spine-chilling voice of suffering describes to me a future of never-ending pain. The voice chuckles lightly and I feel the tremors of cold breath on my ear and the back of my neck as I try to tune it out for the millionth time, with no success. Instead, I listen intently. I listen to the words I've become all too familiar with - like the lyrics to a favorite song on repeat. I hope to hear the warm voice of reassurance and happiness to no avail.


The feeling of hopelessness and sadness is like a cancer spreading rapidly throughout every bone, every nerve, and every cell of my weary, broken body. The voices of abandon and rejection from the world are at my ear whispering sweet nothings of heartbreak and depression. The industrial-grade glue is wearing off from the fractured and broken pieces of my heart that I have managed to somehow mend. But, from time to time, a little piece here and there falls into the dark abyss of oblivion that no amount of light can locate. And in the piece's place, a hole will forever remain - waiting to be filled with something that I will never receive.


Love is a feeling that every human wants fulfilled. I see it in linked hands, dreamy eyes, gooey expressions, and shy half-smiles. I am not ashamed to say that I want love in my life. I have never felt love, and I have never loved. Due to past events, it is very difficult to me to feel love or to love anyone for fear of getting left behind again. However, I have realized that I will be able to bear my pain and anguish in sweet content if I feel a warm hand entwined with my own. I long for this, but, ironically, I am too afraid to get close to anybody. I do not want to drag someone I love into my own personal Hell and allow them to see me burn. After all, if the man who helped create me, and the divine being who created humanity didn't want me, who would?


I long for the warm fingers of contentment clasped with my cold, clammy ones of fear. I long for the ability to breathe a full breath without the hands of sorrow and pain to determine otherwise. All this I long for, as well as just one day of happiness. If none of this is in my future, then I ask desperately, pleadingly, to any deity, that I simply have one day where I can bear my own life instead of struggling minute by minute. Banish the icy fingers, raspy voices, and chilling breath to a world away from my own. Prevent any more hardships and misfortunes that cause me to wake up in the morning with eyes swollen with evident truth of the happenings of the night before.

Happiness seems to have eluded me for the past 16 years. Maybe it's not in the cards for me. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, or in the wrong places. Or maybe I'm not worthy of happiness. It always slips through my weak hands at the minute. It's like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands. You can see it. You can smell it, taste it, even. But you can never grasp it. It simply floats away, tauntingly.


My life is complicated and convoluted. I tend to stay away from new people because of this. I don't want them to be a part of the life that I find scarcely bearable. I will prevent this from happening at all costs. No one will ever be allowed to see what I go through on a daily basis. I may tell them about it, but they will never see it. I guarantee that.


Happiness, love, and contentment may come in time, but I don't know if I can hang on much longer. I don't know if a person will bring all this, or if one day I'll wake up and everything will be like nothing happened. Only time will tell.


"If I had one day when, when I didn't have to be all confused and I didn't have to feel that I was ashamed of everything. If I felt that I belonged someplace. You know?"-- James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause"