Over the years, I developed the notion that my own welfare comes before anything else. I don’t owe anyone else anything that I don’t want to give them and I don’t have the ability to let someone in unless I learn to truly embrace what I have first. Looking back, I see nothing but my own selfish and careless mistakes hurting anyone that crossed my path. Last week, I was given a harsh reminder that I only have a small window of time to make up for these mistakes. Because I’ll never know when someone will no longer be there when I’m ready to face these mistakes.

It’s been a week, and all of these pangs of guilt and sorrow are starting to accumulate to the point where my head feels like it’s going to implode and it’s hard to breathe. I need to let it out. And I guess here is as good as anywhere…

I just want to address what I’m about to say to all those who may be deemed applicable. I will probably never develop the courage to utter them, but these words are something that have added weight and unnecessary stress that I need to express.

In the spur of the moment, I only see my own personal issues and I don’t see anyone else. But, looking at the big picture, I’ve realized that I have been missing a lot of things in myself and in the world around me. There were things I took for granted and people that truly cared for me…but I couldn’t see that. All I saw were all the dangers around me, and an uncomfortable vulnerability that only I could protect myself from.

I just want you to know that you weren’t just another person in my life. Even when I told you that you weren’t special or implied it in any way (I know I specifically implied it in spite). 

I have this pattern of pushing people away. And, looking back, I’ve found that that’s all I ever did to you. I don’t know why, or how I didn’t notice, or why I never apologized for dragging you along like I did. I really don’t know why you didn’t just leave it alone and stop talking to me altogether.

I think that’s why it’s so hard for me to move on. Because I’ll never be able to tell you about how I’m sorry for being so twisted and miserable and that you didn’t deserve any of it. Every day for the past few days, there’s been a pit in my stomach just lying there, reminding me of just that.

A year ago today…

A year ago today, I vowed that 2011 would be a better year.

A year ago today, I was headed toward the airport and couldn’t be more relieved about coming home…which may be deemed strange because there was a huge blizzard up in NY and everyone up here was yelling at me for complaining about how I had to wear a sweater in Florida.

But that’s besides the point.

One year later, I can look back upon 2011 and see that a better year has gone by. In the course of a year, I’ve been able to turn things around before it was too late. I’m no longer being forced to take pills that don’t help me. I’m no longer wishing that I could spend every day forgetting about the atrocities around me to watch Netflix all day (or maybe I’m still like that…but only because I’m being pummeled with useless busywork). Everyone in my family has finally adapted to the changes we have been through and we’ve found our new places in each other’s lives.

When I look back, I really don’t know how I made it through those two months…the two months when everything seemed to be falling apart. When the people who were supposed to be there for me weren’t. And how that’s all a thing of the past.

But something that will always scare me is the underlying notion that those two months will not be the last (or only) two months. As 2012 is around the corner, I graduate high school, I move on to college, and eventually find a new stability, I’ll have to face one of the scariest truths that I am currently avoiding: that all this may only be possible because of a single white pill…

Behind every atheist, there was a person who believed that G-d existed.

Behind every feminist, there was a girl who struggled vigorously and she once believed that her worth was measured by how she impressed a boy.

17 and indifferent

I’m always going to be too young.

For the longest time, I was too young for two reasons: I was “jail bait” and I was in high school. Even though I was too young, my age or the fact that I’m still in high school hasn’t been a barrier. But it does cause some unspoken conflict of some sort…

As of four days ago, I stopped being “jail bait” (at least in NY). I was put under the impression that anyone that saw me as “jail bait” would start trying to rekindle something that died a long time ago. And I was right (unfortunately). I CAN WATCH R-RATED MOVIES WITHOUT HAVING TO SKETCHILY ASK SOMEONE TO BUY MY TICKET. I’m almost halfway through my senior year of high school. People are looking up to me (figuratively, not literally) and asking me questions about college and my future and how I survived my junior year of high school and how I’m not dead yet from taking three semesters of Social Studies classes/requirements concurrently (two of which are APs), and taking other difficult classes in the same semester (I’m pretty sure I’m a zombie by now…just saying). For once in my life, I’m the bigger person that knows enough to pass my knowledge on to the next person.

But I’m still too young. 

I’m still in high school. I’m gonna be a freshman again next year. I’m still not 18, which is going to impose a huge inconvenience on me (in fact, it already has). Being the age I used to tell people I was is going to be a huge fucking tease. 

And once I’m 18, being too young is not going to go away. Those three years of not being 21 is going to be an even bigger tease. 

I’m not even gonna continue on this shpiel, even though I was planning on it. There’s still a part of me that *kinda* wants to stay young and free forever.