Remembering You

People told me things will change when you grow up. You will love life and everything will be okay. And I used to believe that. I used to believe in a lot of things. Like in fourth grade, I believed I would be MVP on the softball team, not a laughing joke because I cried over the death of one of my favorite human beings on this earth. And in fifth grade, I believed I was in love with my best friend at the time. Yeah, that was actually true. I used to believe that my parents were forever. Turns out in seventh grade I was brutally wrong about that. I would have never believed that I would be this damaged back then. Then again, I do not think anyone could ever imagine their lives damaged in the future. That is something to talk about right now. The damage.

I know I should not complain, and that is the last thing I want to do. But as life goes on we deal with some horrible things. I like to believe something that can be classified as dark. Death follows me, it takes the same path as I do. I cannot turn my head without someone or something dying. By this I do mean actual people and at the same time I mean other things. Like friendships, loves, plants, life.

Eighteen years, it took that many to figure out death is more than just an acquaintance in my life. I think that is why I like being alone. As long as I can remember someone I knew died. Death is beautiful though, I do not blame it for coming into my life. I blame myself for feeling it so much. I used to believe in life. I used to believe that there had to be a reason people died. Or why my first animal never came home from that so called trip she took. As a child you never really think about it. You never think that life can be taken so easily away from you.

At age thirteen up until age fifteen, I was slowly flirting with death. Seems like such a horrible thing to say, but do not lie. We have all been there. We were all teens who thought we were not special. We were not wanted or loved. We lived by bullies telling us something that destroyed us more than anyone could ever possibly think. We lived in fear that we were not good enough for others. We would never be loved by someone because we were not perfect.

I think that is what gets most people. You live with these bullies every day in your life. They push you and push you to get closer to death. But when something happens, when they become accountable, everything changes. They did it for a reason. They were once bullied. They were jealous. You did something to them. Those are excuses made for how humans treat each other. It does not stop the fact bullying leads to very unchangeable actions. It leads you from being a stranger to death, to welcoming him or her to your doorstep.

The damage brought into your life changes you and while I rambled on from one point to another, the simple fact is we are all damaged. Some love life and want to live it to the fullest. Others fear it and welcome death with open arms. Death comes in various ways. It can be the death of a friendship, a goal, or a life.

But even though it can be brutal, it can give you one or more outlooks on life. It can make you see the world as a beautiful place where everything is equal because death takes everyone and everything. Or you can look at life as living day by day, not caring if death takes you today or tomorrow or whenever it comes.

You can ask me why I welcome it so openly and the answer stays the same. Death is beautiful, it balances out the life we are given. And at the end of the day, death is taking me to a place where I know someone is waiting for me. He has been there for three years. So, I will open my arms wide, just to not have to live without the one I love longer than is needed.

I used to believe life was the most beautiful thing in the world. But minus the darkness of it, death is overly beautiful. I used to believe in mankind of all things, yet as it seems, things change as you grow up. You turn your childhood beliefs into memories and the past, while you create new beliefs and new reasons to live a better life than that of your youth.