Most of the time, we don't really like to tell the story as it is. Sure, we give glimpses. But we don't really give ourselves over to the full open heart surgery. I'm giving my story up now. Do what you will with it. Judge for yourself whether I'm justified, or don't judge at all. Look for a message or read just to know me. This is our secret now, passed on through pixels and light. Do what you will with it. All I ask is that you listen.

As a kid, I think I was happy.
My memories of those times are like sepia photographs, snapshots of moments that are intact except for their color, their feeling. They are few and far between. There's a purple seesaw, a tortoise named Shelly and I think we all were happy.

My dad died when I was in 8th grade, a heart attack, but the funny thing is, I don't think that's what broke me.
It made me a little more worldly-wise, sure, but the memories of that time are all the same as the one before. There's a boat in DC, and a dancer named Rebecca and I think we all were happy.

My sophomore year, that's when the memories change. They come alive. They burn with colors so bright that I have to stick my head into a pillowcase just to breathe.
The funny thing is, I can get over my dad dying just fine, but when my coaches were mean to us, that is when I broke.

They were a little more than mean. They lied to us, told us that the judges said we'd never be good enough for a higher class, just because we were Ridgewood. They told us we were cry babies. They had us do things without teaching us how. We kept getting hurt. Someone threw up on the right side of the gym. They pulled me and my co-captain aside and told us that they had chosen us for a reason- what possible reason? i wonder now. To manipulate us?- and that we weren't doing our jobs and we needed to push our team harder.

We just wanted to be good enough. I thought maybe I could work harder. I guess that's always been one of my problems. So when asked by an administrator what on earth was going wrong...

I defended them.

When my team needed me most, I stood up for our coaches. And then they quit on us. Because they were only twenty or so? Because we were all incompatible? Because, though I never want to think this way, maybe they're just not very nice people?

Of course then I could see how badly my team was hurting. And I was supposed to be a leader? I tried to keep everyone together, to make up for what I had let happen. We organized our own performance, we got new coaches. I helped build my team into a place where people felt built up, not torn down.

I looked for closure. I sent our old coach a message, saying I wanted to understand her side of the story, telling her that she had hurt me. She said she was sorry about that. But what got me was that she never admitted that she too could've done something wrong.

The funny thing is, this all should've been easy to let go. I mean, I never have to see her, be reminded of her, ever again. People go through so, so much worse.

But it was like the moment she quit, someone opened my own personal Pandora's box.

And I know I'm not happy now.

I smile all the time, I work hard as a leader, I'm an A student, a merit scholar. But I see so much now that it hurts. Does anyone else keep thinking about how random our cute, little existence is? I see and I know what the right thing to do is, so I have to keep doing it. It's 24/7 awareness. It's not very fun. In fact, it makes me so tired, I can hardly do the things that need to get done.

I don't know if I'm okay. Maybe I'm just some imposter, looking for a little love in this lonely world and I'm actually doing fine. Maybe I'm just some lonely, smart kid.

Or maybe, inexplicably, with no right to be so,
I'm really very broken.

That's my story, the why I am the way I am at least. Thoughts on a page, my own catharsis sent out into the world. Now, at the very end of this all, I think this was more for myself, than those who will see this tomorrow. But if you have read to the end, I thank you for being interested in another broken soul.