Keep Breathing

I’m writing this post in a really peaceful place... It’s not physically anywhere different than where I was a year ago, and yet things are so much better- you have no idea. A year ago, my world fell apart. In one way or another, I lost two of the most important people in my life, each for scarily similar reasons. My dad lost his job. I basically failed Algebra, and it was close to the year anniversary of my Aunt moving to Seattle, which completely tore me apart- I saw her roughly six days a week when she lived in town, and spent my Friday nights (EVERY Friday night) at her house, babysitting for my cousin. I’d then spend the night and we (Aunt, Uncle and cousin) would go out to breakfast (coffee!) Saturday morning and they would take me to my theater class. It was a perfect routine, and then they were gone.

You may be thinking that this sounds awfully close to the plot of my novel. Girl has issues with her two best friends, and has to deal in any way that she can... Well, that is because most of it happened to me. Not everything, of course- and there are very few details that are exactly as they happened. A lot of things were simplified, and the characters can in some way resemble their counterparts, but are by no means exact copies.

All the time when this was all happening, I didn’t know where I was supposed to go, I was just sick of everything, plodding through life minute by minute. I sunk into a depression; I was never suicidal, I just lost any desire to do anything by lay in bed all day and cry. I wanted to seal over my door and keep the world out. I moved on in many ways, but those memories still haunt me at times, and some of the scars left over are still sensitive. But I look back on March ’09 now, 12 months later, and realize that I just kept breathing, and moved forward in any way that I could... I look back and still wonder how I got through it. But I did. I kept going, and I did extra credit in algebra to get my grade up, and moved away for three months, I worked at a grocery store, I bought a laptop that I had been dreaming about for years and years; I started a novel, stopped it mid-way and wrote another novel in 30 days.

I adapted, and I got better, and today I no longer have that sick feeling sitting in my stomach, I no longer wish that I could just seal over my door and have people feed me coffee and burritos through the hole in the bottom; and all of the people that I lost a year ago happen to be with me again. My dad found a job just last week, and I’m not failing Algebra 2. Am I back where I started? In some ways, yes. But am I stronger because of it? Absolutely.