She came into my room without knocking and took her position standing by the edge of the bed. She is my sister, only one year older than I am, and we are very close. So, it did not bother me that she simply came in unannounced. I laid in my bed and she looked at me with a blank expression, as if waiting for me to say something. I sat up in my messy bed, moving the mound of school work that surrounded me into one stack.

It was a Tuesday. But not just any Tuesday. It was a Tuesday in the month of April, which meant cramming for all of my AP tests was in full swing and prom was quickly approaching, on top of the other drama that high school brings. Unfortunately, I could hardly remember anything and I did not even have a date or dress for prom. So, my mind was overcome with stress, which made me fall into a spell.

But I had grown used to this already. Falling into a spell, that is. It had happened many times before. I begin to lose myself in thoughts, ultimately questioning things like, “Is it all even worth it?” or “What is my purpose?” or “Who am I really? Who am I supposed to be?” This continues for many weeks, up to months even, and eventually I am in an almost paralyzed state of living, merely following the life that I was used to without thinking. Of course, with less than a month until the most important days arrive, this was an inconvenient time to fall victim.
No one else knew about these spells because I had become good at hiding them. I had assumed that it is just a teenage phase, and fortunately it turned out that I was right. During these phases, most of my time I had spent in my bedroom, sitting on my bed, thinking, just as I was doing when my sister stumbled in.

She still hadn't spoken, or at least I hadn't noticed. Her eyes flickered around the room briefly, then returned to me. She plopped down on my bed, and at last she spoke.

“My body hurts.” she declared, not making any further statements.

I was not really interested, but I did not want to be rude so I answered her anyway.

“Oh yeah? Why?” I said, faking a tone of concern in my voice.

“I don't know. Just all of a sudden it just started hurting.”

“Wow... that's weird.” I replied back to her, my head still down, eyes practically glazed over as I thought about my life.

“Yeah. It feels like I was hit by a truck... but I wasn't so..”

“Well, that's good to hear” I abruptly interrupted.

She continued, “ I don't know what happened, but my whole body hurts. My arms, my back, my legs, my neck! Even my bones feel sore!”
She told me all of this as though she expected me to diagnose her with something, but at the time I hardly acknowledged her presence.
“Wow.. you should get that fixed.” I slightly joked.

“Nah, I'm just going to rest and hopefully I feel better to play in the basketball game.”

Feeling a bit guilty for my rudeness, I really began to think about what she was saying. Like your body, sometimes life starts to hurt for seemingly no reason. Nothing major happened, but you eventually get worn down, physically and emotionally, and you just can't do it anymore. You just need to take a break. And that is okay. Life is hard, and sometimes it just all gets to be too much. I was always a perfectionist, always put together, doing the right thing, getting straight A's, being “perfect”, holding myself to higher standards than is probably healthy. In that moment, I finally understood that its okay to be human, and humans aren't perfect and put together and tied with a bow. They get sad, and tired, and stressed out. But they make it.

She continued to talk for a few more minutes about her friends and school while I thought about what she had said earlier, but I missed most of the new conversation except for a few stray words that I happened to pick up. When our conversation ended, she left my room, leaving an indent on the corner of my blanket where she had plopped herself down a few minutes earlier.