An Endless Summer

Sometimes I think that my life is an endless summer, each day coming and going in this quick swirl of emotions and excitement. The warm summer air and the sunlight beaming down on your shoulders, looking out as the sun sets and waiting, or dreaming, of something new and far away and beautiful. A summer that is filled with so many ups and downs, you feel like your stomach might turn like it did that one time you were on the scariest roller coaster at the park with your brother and you definitely didn’t think you were going to survive. But because he was there, I was able to make it through. My brother smiled at me, grabbed my hand, said, “it’s okay kiddo, you’re going to love this”. He always called me kiddo. Sort of like Beatrix Kiddo in Kill Bill. Except he’s my silly, wonderful, mentally ill brother, and I am his silly and insane little sister.

Anyway, it’s been a long time since I sat down and wrote something truly genuine. But right now, that’s all I want to do; I want to tell you all about what it’s like to be in this life. Because maybe you’ll get something out of it, maybe you’ll learn something from it. Maybe you’ll just enjoy the ride for a little bit, and that’s cool.

So, where do I even begin? I guess when I think of the words “endless summer”, I think of being a child, when the warmth of the sun was a comforting blanket around my shoulders as my brother, sister, and I ran through the sprinkler with our dog DJ just to cool off from the summer heat. Those summers were the best. When the popsicle melts halfway down your arm and you still continue eating it because you are completely okay with getting sticky and gross. Or me, lying in the grass with my dog, getting dirt all over my clothes, but not caring. Not caring about the dirt.

Sometimes we really make huge messes, but when you’re a kid, you’re not afraid of that, somehow it’s this gift because when you are a kid you are more brave, and daring, and excited about the idea that you can try so many different things. The world is so exciting. When you get older, you don’t want to make mistakes. You fear that any mistake will ruin you. The “dirt” on your knees becomes something more; the messes in our lives become complicated and become more difficult to clean. But somehow, you always get through it. Somehow, you always manage to just barely make it through the next big obstacle in your life.

When I was about 14 or 15, I started writing poetry, listening to sad music, lying on my floor and feeling this bitter emptiness that I knew no one else could possibly understand. Where did it come from? Why was I so sad? Why had I all of a sudden started to feel these intense emotions? How had I gone from an innocent, carefree, happy child, to this? Big things happen. Those things that happen when we are growing up are the things that stick with us throughout the rest of our lives, for better or worse.

I felt trapped most of the time in this toxic environment, this place where I felt so alone and lonely, and I felt like I had no control. I often criticized myself; looked in the mirror and winced, I hated the person I saw in front of me. I started thinking like this even earlier, back when I was 12, but I just hadn't quite figured out what it meant. Then I got a little older and more depressed and I used to sit on the floor and slowly start chipping away at myself, every piece of myself; the beautiful things, the not so beautiful things, the deep, dark abyss that was always churning inside me.

I created my own mess. I didn’t know how to express my feelings. I didn’t know who to talk to or where to turn or what to do. So I sat there, in my room, in my closet, in the dark, listening to sad music, hoping, waiting for anything to bring me out of this place. The disappearing razors under the bathroom sink; the kitchen knives that they haven’t been able to find for months. Where do they think they are? How do they never notice? Why don’t they ever notice that I’m hurting? I can’t tell them. I can only sit here alone and release this pain by myself. It felt like I was lifting a huge weight off of me; that for just a few minutes, the yelling and screaming echoing through the air vents was just my imagination; that all of this was more like a dream than reality.

I felt something. Something other than sadness and apathy. And that meant something to me. But I still never told anyone about it. I kept it behind closed doors, wore long sleeved shirts, covered my scars and scrapes with those jelly bracelets that all the kids at school thought were about sex or something but really they weren’t (at least not to me and my friends). I simply went on with my day, swimming through the sea of teenagers around me, never truly feeling like I was a part of that world, but only that I was a small fish in a big sea. That’s where it all began for me.

As I got older, things got worse. My illness got worse. Most people would look at me and wonder; why is she doing that to herself? She has such a great life. You can still seem to have it all, and still feel totally and completely helpless. I don’t have it all. I don’t have any of my shit together. But every time I sit down and write, every time I express these thoughts that go racing through my brain at all hours of the day and type them out right here, I get some sort of peace.

Some sort of way of knowing that by writing these words down, I can make an even larger impact on the world. That in this mad, crazy, fucked up world, there might be someone out there just like me, alone, sad, crying. Someone who needs love, and support, and for someone to tell them, “hey, i love you so, so much”. I want to help those people. I want to love those people. They need the most love. They are like me. That’s why I love them. So from now on, I want to do that. Make other people happy. Give myself to the most difficult task in the entire world; healing. Healing myself, healing with other people, just healing. That's what I'm going to do.