Don’t blink. You might miss this moment right here, right now. I stare at the old poster hanging on the wall across from me, wondering where the time went, and trying in vain to recall every day I spent at a desk with my fellow classmates. I can only catch fleeting images from my childhood. Some come back to me more vividly than others. Memories of woodchips getting stuck in my shoes as I played pretend on the playground; to the smell of chalk wafting from the chalk board. I miss the imaginary world to which I would escape to during the day, and the dreamland of rainbows and butterflies that came to me at night. Most of all, I miss being blissfully ignorant to the harsh realities of the world. When you’re that young you don’t ask questions, everyone is your best friend, and Santa Claus is real. The only things you had to worry about was the boogeyman and how to get rid of your vegetables behind your mother’s back. Back then, life was easy.

The awkward adolescent years of junior high haunt me like a bad yearbook photo. I can’t forget them, as hard as I’ve tried. I can’t remove them from the comfortable crevasse they occupy in my mind. I can remember how maladroit I felt. That out of body feeling was a constant companion as my body went through the changes of puberty. Making friends was even worse. It was an excruciating process that involved the awkward phase of getting to know each other. Imagine two baby deer together on an ice rink being chased by a hungry wolf; that’s how it felt to make friends.

Just before middle school started, I experienced my first tragedy. His name is George and he is the father of my sister Sabrina. He helped raise my brother Jason and me since we were five and three. I remember watching him draw the most intricate pictures of flowers or cartoons; the writing utensil seemed to merge with his hand as they moved together as one fluid instrument. One day we came home to find all of his things gone. Our mother said he went to live with his sister in Michigan, and he promised to call when he arrived. To this day, I still can’t find the words to explain how it felt like; to feel his presence just disappear like a ghost. I felt betrayed, blindsided, angry, and sad. My feelings and thoughts leeched the life from me as I questioned what I could have done to cause this. I didn’t understand and it frustrated me. I took my mess of emotions, stuffed them in a bottle, and left them deep in my heart. I put all of my energy into my school work, chores around the house, anything except those feelings. I wish I could say that burying my feelings was successful, but like a car, I only had so much fuel to burn before I started to slow down.

I had so many plans and aspirations for my senior year. I was ready to start on my path to college planning, and I wanted to finish off my high school career with a bang. As always, nothing went according to plan. To start off, my mother decided it was time she and her boyfriend combined our families under one roof, which was the last thing I wanted to deal with. I like Stanley, he’s a great guy but he’s a brute. Since his ex-wife was out of the picture, Stanley and his son Max lived together and they lived like guys. Actually, a better word is pigs. When we went to his house for dinner the first time, my socks would stick to the carpet as I walked across it. Their toilet seat was covered in pee, and they had a sink full of dirty dishes. Every table top was covered in papers or some woodworking tool because Stanley was an aspiring craftsman. Anyways, moving in with him and his son didn’t thrill me at all, but I was happy that my mom finally found someone that made her happy. Even if it was at our expense. She moved us from our home and school when I was starting my senior year. It broke my heart, but instead of saying anything, I bit my tongue and pushed some more unspoken feelings into my tiny bottle.

Starting at a new school was a nightmare. I went to tryouts for field hockey during the last few weeks of summer and made the team. So luckily I knew a few people when I started the year, but that was it. I knew them, and that’s where it ended. The terrible out of body feeling from middle school haunted me as I walked from class to class and ate alone. I tried to focus my energies into my school work, but the courses here were much more rigorous than my previous school, and I found myself struggling a great deal. It was an unnerving feeling. School was the one place where I felt like I could relax and let my mind absorb all the knowledge it craved, but since we moved, it felt like a beaver built a dam in my mind, blocking any and all information from being processed. It was frustrating and it made me resent my mother and Stanley more than I already did, but again I suppressed my feelings.

I reached my breaking point in October. At this time of year you’re supposed to be applying to colleges, and for my family it was also the time we were planning my mother and Stanley’s wedding. I was on my own for college preparations, and I had my list ready, but there was one problem: I hadn’t visited any of my colleges. I asked my mother on multiple occasions if she’d take me, I even left her a list of my colleges. I told her I’d set up everything, but nothing made her budge. I understood she was busy with the wedding, but this was my future. I thought she’d want to be a part of it. It’s not that she refused to do it, it’s the fact that she lied. She promised, saying next weekend, next day off, next month. She pushed it farther and farther back until it was too late. I was too late.
Shortly after I finished applying to my colleges, we attended the wedding. It was simple but beautiful. I was genuinely happy for my mother and Stanley despite the fact that this wedding was the very reason my future got pushed to the back burner. Afterwards we headed over to the lodge for the wedding reception. I sat at a table by myself as I watched the adults drink and talk about the horrors of marriage. Some were dancing while the children ran around their legs hyped up on soda, and in the middle of it all were the groom and bride. My mother looked truly radiant that night. Her hair was half up and half down, a cascade of strawberry blonde curls flowing down to her lower back. She seemed to glow under the lights as she gazed at Stanley. I was snapped back to reality when my uncle sat down next to me. He began to ask me about school and sports, I reciprocated questions about his new job as an electrician and his family. He proceeded to ask me about my colleges: which one was my favorite, where had I visited, and I was embarrassed when I couldn’t answer any of his questions. He was clearly shocked and asked me why I haven’t at least visited them, and I explained that we were just too busy with the wedding. That’s when he exploded. He cried out saying that that was nonsense and that my future is just as important. His sudden outburst caused my mother to come over, but before she could reach the table, my uncle was out of his chair and headed toward her. I watched quietly from the table, curious as to what my mother would say in response. She looked very calm and collected, but her response dripped with venom, and it felt directed straight at me. She said, “It isn’t necessary to visit every college to know which one you want to go to. They’re all the same and the most logical decision would be to go to the cheapest one. Maybe if some people didn’t blame everyone else for their lack of knowledge on the college they applied to, then they’d see that the answer is right in front of their face. Clearly, if they can’t even put that much effort into something, then maybe they shouldn’t be going to college at all.” With that being said, she ended the conversation. I physically felt something snap in me that day. That bottle of suppressed emotions finally broke and consumed me like a fire. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t handle it. I shut down. I shut everything and everyone out.

For years I had avoided these feelings. I was determined to never feel this way again, and I was determined to be the best child, student, and friend I could be. I strived for perfection in everything I did. Most people looked at me and saw a driven student, the perfect daughter, a reliable friend; unfortunately, I was not one of these people. I always found flaws in everything I did, I never felt good enough. These poisonous thoughts ate at me for years and my mother’s harsh reaction to my uncle at the wedding drove the final stake into my already broken heart.
I remember the first time I did it, the way it felt to have the blade slide across my skin. I watched the blood ooze out, warm and sticky on my skin. Pain was the one feeling I didn’t suppress since that day. I wasn’t suicidal. I didn’t want to die; I just wanted control of one thing in my life. I felt so alone and abandoned, I didn’t know what else to do. One day I was out on the porch reading, it was early March, and it was just warm enough to go out in a t-shirt. I didn’t hear her come up behind me, so her sudden gasp startled me to an upright position. When I saw her face, shocked horror shown in her eyes as I followed her gaze, and there it fell upon the scars. I was careless. I didn’t cover them up since I stayed home that day, and in that moment, I realized the magnitude of my mistake.

My mother’s initial reaction was a flash of anger, to fleeting panic, and she finally settled on being my mom. She sat down next to me. She didn’t say a word, she simply opened her arms to me. I reached for them, I welcomed their warmth and for the first time since my sister’s dad left, I cried. There we sat for hours as we cried, and my mother begged for me to open up to her. I couldn’t do it all right then and there, but together every day we sit down and talk, and every day we get a little deeper into the abyss of my problems. In the end it turns out my mother didn’t realize the stress and anxiety she caused me. She apologized a countless amount of times saying that I never seemed unhappy so she never thought twice about what she did. Slowly, we picked up the pieces of our relationship and started to mend the bond that had been broken so long ago. So even though I miss being a child, I’m finally content with where I am, with who I am. I’m not perfect and I never will be, but that’s okay because I’m the best me there is.