Just Cant Express How Deeply, How Passionately I Wantto Be Good. I Dont Want To Hurt Anyone. I Never

just can’t express how deeply, how passionately I want…to be good. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I never want to do anything that makes someone feel worthless or invisible or ugly or gross or uncomfortable. I can’t stand it that it’s impossible. It hurts so much to know I have made people feel like this and I will again in the future, knowingly and unknowingly. I want to be good. I want to be light. I want to make people feel loved and beautiful and worth it. I feel like it’s not enough. What I am…is not enough. I need to do more. I need to be more. I need to be better.

I woke up the next morning. My pupils opened up toward the glow of the sun and I had lived to see another day. Just the night before, I had said my goodbyes. I had shed my last tear. I had made peace with my time in the world. But…my blood was still warm when I opened my eyes.

“You have been given another chance to live!” My sister wept. The words echoed in the back of my mind.

“But I don’t want to live.” I whispered. She never heard what I said.

I started reading self help books when I was about twelve years old. I spent all of my free time reading, researching, making lists. I could have titled my lists in many different ways: “Ways to Be a Better Person,” “Things I Need to Work on,” “How to Make Myself Better.” They all meant the same thing. They mean the same thing I mean now when I cry over my reflection in the mirror and journal about all of the mistakes I’ve made in this life. I’ve always wanted to fix myself. I’ve always wanted to be more than I am.

Not to mention…my mother took it upon herself to inform my dad, my grandparents, my aunts, my uncles, and pretty much everyone she could think of about my sexuality. I was not ready. I was so terrified and I told my sister I was gay as a start. I was not ready to come out to everyone in my life or to exist as a gay woman yet. It should have been my choice. It should have been on my timeline. I am very very angry at them. My sister was a child so I can understand it more, but my mother? She was a grown adult. And she thought that she should tell everyone my own deeply personal information without so much as asking me if it was okay. I felt so out of control that day. I never had so much anxiety in my life. My whole body felt shaky and it felt like I was having a heart attack. It just…shouldn’t have happened that way.

Reminiscing on my “coming out.” I was so scared. So small, so shaky. So, so scared for so long. It had been over a year of sexuality related anxiety and OCD taking over my life. It almost drove me to take my life. I didn’t want to be who I knew I was that much. Finally…one day, I got the courage to tell someone. I told my sister. I really said it, I said the words “I’m gay” out loud. I did it. It felt like a relief. I was still terrified and shaky, but I was glad to have another person to hold this with me. And then…that same night my sister outed me to my entire family. She didn’t mean to hurt me. I found out that she had been cutting herself, so I told my mom for her safety. In an effort to take my moms attention off of her cutting, she outed me. In front of her friends and my mothers friends. It hurt me so much because this meant that she viewed being gay as something so bad and horrible that it could top her harming herself. I remember getting that text from my mom, feeling my heart drop out of my chest, feeling my throat tighten up. “____ is saying that you’re a lesbian. Is that true?” my mom texted me. She sounded so accusatory, like she was hoping my sister was lying. When they returned to the house, they looked at me differently. They acted nervous and unsure around me. Like I was some caged animal that could break out at any moment. I will never forget that night. It took me so long and it took so much courage for me to tell my sister, and I needed her support because I didn’t have it in me to give it to myself. But she didn’t give me that. She took my chance to come out on my own terms away from me. And she made it more dangerous for me. My family already treated me differently than my other siblings, but this pushed them over the edge. It was just another thing to other me, to separate me from others. I really understand the pain she was in and the reasoning behind her doing it, but I can’t forgive that. She took something from me that can’t ever be given back.

I used to loathe our friendship and the way you’d stand so high over me. I never thought I’d miss it, but I do. I miss it so much. I miss when we’d sit in those white beach chairs down by the lake, staring at our reflections and feeling the sun against our skin. I miss your touch. The way you’d hug me like I meant something. I miss how we would eat dinner and then go on walks around your neighborhood. Walking the loop, laughing, remembering old times. I miss our little talks. I miss you.

I keep having this moment and it feels so light and airy and special. It feels like a sigh of relief, like that moment when you lay down in bed after a long day and feel your muscles exhale. Last year, on my way home for Christmas, I was begging my parents to get me help because I felt so suicidal and burdened with depression. This year, after a suicide attempt and long recovery, I finally feel happy. I don’t know when and I don’t know how, but at some point, lightness slipped back into my mind and made its home there. I can’t help but be brought to tears at the beauty of it all. I’m still here. I’m still here. Against my will. I fought hard to leave and some part of me saved me. Something in me kept me alive and brought me to this moment. To this joy. To this peace. I am grateful for that now, though there was a point in my life where I wouldn’t have been. It is truly a miracle that I survived and I feel that in every molecule of my body.