It's been over a year since my dad put a gun to his head and sprayed his brains all over the house that I grew up in.

I wasn't there when it happened, but just knowing that it happened that way haunts me constantly. My father had survived cancer, and fought with that for most of my life, so I thought he could survive anything. I never knew how sad he was, and now that I have been slapped in the face with it, I can't shake this terrible feeling. I feel like I wasn't a good enough daughter to him. Like i failed him because i thought he was stronger than he was. Like most little girls, I grew up idolizing my dad. Thinking of him as a super hero. A rock. An unstoppable force who was going to be by my side and in my life forever. But that was not the case. He left me in a blood-stained memory, and all I can do is think about him. Everything comes back to that phone call I got saying he was gone.

There are so many days where I feel all I can do is cry and think about every moment I ever spent with him. Some days I'm just bitter and ******* about everything and I want to punch everyone in the face who's having a better time than I am. I think about his death constantly. I dream about it. And I have become so dependent on substances to fade away the reality of everything, when I try not to drink or smoke, I end up feeling everything 100 times stronger. I just want to be numb. I want to stop feeling all of this. I feel too much at once, and I just hate how much this event has taken over my life. I loved my dad more than anything. He was always the one I could talk to when things weren't going well, or the first person I'd want to call when everything was going great! I have no one now, or at least it feels that way. I am not the same person I was before his suicide, and the people who love me might not love this new me. They might only love the old me, and she's never coming back.

it was two weeks before my 25th birthday when it happened. Everything near his death date is tainted. My birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas. I don't want any of it anymore, because it will never be the same.

All I ever wanted was for my father to see me succeed. And I'll never get that chance. He died knowing I was a loser. He died knowing I hadn't become anyone yet. That I hadn't done anything with my life. Well, I'm doing something now. At least, I'm trying. I'm trying to get my art out there. I'm trying to get my life in order. I've quit smoking for over 5 months now (and I want to break down every minute of every day and smoke, but I'm staying strong). He'll never get to see the woman I'm becoming. It tears me up inside when I realize everything he's missing. And then I just start to get angry, because there are so many times when I've wanted to give up on everything. But I haven't. I'm still here. I'm still here fighting with my own pain, and now on top of it, I'm fighting with his, too. It's so much weight for one set of shoulders to carry, but I'm doing my damnedest.