Restart

i’m going to tell my story. I have no idea where my story begins. I’ve hesitated writing this story for 19 months because I simply do not know where to begin..… when did it start?

was it when i was 4, nervous about my little brother being safe in his crib so i would watch him nap? was it when i watched that Disney movie at age 5, about the Vietnam war and they rescued all of the children whose parents had been killed? i couldn’t stop thinking about death. was it when my parents divorced at age 8 and all of my stability came crumbling down? was it all of those nights when I stayed up watching that channel about children with leukemia? some died and some made it into remission. was it when i was 13 and my best friend was diagnosed out of nowhere with leukemia and it ravaged her? was it when she died 8 short weeks from the day she was diagnosed? was it was it was it……. i think it’s here. when i just couldn’t handle any more sadness. i think this is when i began to come undone. 

i want to get this story right. for so long i wanted everything symmetrical. i wanted to tack my real life events up on a timeline and pinpoint when i broke, when i became officially “diagnosable”. but i’m free from wanting that now. i know life, pain. suffering and healing are not linear. i know now that I was never broken. I know now that i was just a girl with a lot of feelings. I am still a girl with a lot of feelings. 

i don’t know if i will get this story right but i am going to tell it. 

i will sit here with my headphones on, listening to Sleeping At Last and i will type away on my macbook.
when i was 17 i swallowed 2 lies.
my first capsule of Prozac and the belief that i was mentally ill.

-Maybe your light is the seed
And the darkness the dirt
In spite of the uneven odds
Beauty lifts from the earth

You’re much too young now
So i write these words down,
“Darkness exists to make light truly count.”-
Sleeping At Last- Uneven Odds