There has always been my family...

And My Family.

Day 1

I was born.
This girl was born to her parents not knowing anything. Living her life through school and music with her sisters and little brother, this is her life.
This is her family.
This is my family.

9th Grade

I meet a girl, and she is the definition of deafening headphone music and larger than life punk rock music. These types of instantaneous connections are too strong to ignore.
I knew right away, we would be friends.
She introduces me to her friends and I find myself in a group hug of my new friends, people who decided to accept me.
This is her family.
This is my family.

10th Grade

The same girl is my closest friend. But I am not her closest friend. I feel her pull away to be somebody else, and that is okay. I will often run to her crying and sad and she will do her best to pick me up. And she does.
The friend group we have is more like home than the house I sleep in. I forget about my parents and find comfort in the arms of my friends.
I feel conflicted about which family means more to me.
I tell her, "I know blood is thicker than water."
She tells me, "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb."

...I have never heard that before.

Is this her way of saying that we are more family than anything?
Maybe we are.
Or maybe we were.

We walk together knowing that we are never giving up on each other.
This is her family.
This is my family.

11th Grade

I meet another girl. A friend of a friend. Jealousy builds. Attention is a fight nobody wants to lose, I have become the 3rd party nobody asked for.
Families are supposed to fight. But now my family is not one that will fight for our happiness back.

But I want to.

I always have.

But I cannot fix this because I am not the only person involved.
Why are we fighting?!

Day X

I wish I could take back my mistakes.
One friend describes her life connected to 4 people... one of which is no longer talking to her.

And that one friend is also part of my family. And if losing 1 of 4 people you love is a tragedy, than for me...

It is losing 1 out of the 2 people I have left.
The two people I care for most will not talk to each other. And I am the biggest mediator the world never needed. But I cannot let go of either of the two people I love and care about.

I initiated the disaster. I started the dominoes. And I will pay for it.

I have to.

Nobody expected this catastrophe to affect me, or her, or the boyfriend, or the girlfriend, or the best friend, or the lost friend...

The victim
The aggressor
The manipulator
The cryer
The coward

Me

I cannot fix this with my own two hands.

I look at the two people I care for most.
They will not talk to each other.
And to a point, it is my fault.

I look at them.
We all had to suffer and bleed for this covenant of friendship and family.

This is their family.
This is my family.

This was my family.

It’s 11:30 at night, and I’m staring at a screen that no longer notifies me that anyone I know is awake. For I am once again avoiding sleep, but I am waiting for a reason to stay awake. I do not want to sleep for fear of never waking up, but if you send me a message, I will have a reason to get up in the morning.

Fact: Our communication is more body language than it is words but not that this applies to the text message you will send from your phone. For the only thing that doesn’t involve words in a texting conversation is silence.

You’d be surprised at how often I’ve had to be silent for the sake of others. You see, I have been told by many that I am too selfless, and that I need to look out for myself a little more. But I can’t. I do not have the ability to stop caring about people who need me, even if I am suffering more than they are. It hurts…to know that people I care about are in pain, so I pretend my pain isn’t there.

But slowly, I begin to realize that listening to others and caring for them is not a bad thing, but it does give me a reason to ignore my own problems. I don’t want to ignore my own issues, but I don’t have the courage to tell them to my own friends, why is that?

One time, my brother was so sick he could barely swallow without feeling pain, so I only asked him yes or no questions so he could nod or shake his head to answer. His pain, kept him silent, and my pain keeps me silent. The only difference between his situation and mine is that my communication with him was working and this silence within me prevents me from even saying hi to people.

I want to tell people everything, I want to have 5-hour conversations about everything that makes me silent and I want to be able to send you a text message without worrying about whether or not I just interrupted your life for 2 seconds. I want to tell you that I’m having a bad day, but I can’t because seeing you makes my day so much better that I have to smile. I want to tell you why I hate the weekends because I love school because my friends are at school, and that I had a fight with my parents, and that I hate looking at my own reflection, and that every time I say to someone that I’m sorry, I’m also trying to say that I love them. I am sorry…sorry… I want to tell you that I sometimes feel so much pain that when you say hello or goodbye, I will only have enough energy to give you a small smile and a wave, I am lonely…


I want to get better, I want to say everything and be honest and just WHY GOD WON’T YOU HELP ME?!? I want to play music, and have fun, and live my life, please somebody hear me…

Ding

1 New notification:

“Hey, are you still awake? You seemed a little out of it today. I’m always here for you if you need me.”

It’s 12:00am and I’ve missed the moment where today became tomorrow. So maybe today is the day I tell you everything. Maybe our communication isn’t broken. I write back saying: “Thanks for checking in on me, it means a lot. Now that you mention it, there is something that’s been bothering me, I have something I need to tell you…”