I Keep Having This Moment And It Feels So Light And Airy And Special. It Feels Like A Sigh Of Relief,

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.

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.

being a creative, for me, is more than just an eccentric, pretentious thing I call myself. Creation is my survival. A lot of the suffering and pain that has filled my life I do not have the capacity to face. However, through art, I can face it in a gentle way. Art forces it’s creator to be ripped from survival mode and forced into the present. It forces awareness. When I am creating, I have to be attentive to my emotions and my bodies reactions to things. I have to become more present in my body, more aware of the way I experience the world as an individual person. If I did not create art—and I genuinely and wholeheartedly mean this—I would not be a person, I would not be alive. Artistry and the consumption of art has fulfilled me my whole life. It is a beautiful, more full way of living life and I am endlessly grateful to have felt the ferocious, unmoving calling to be an artist. I don’t know who I would be without it, but I know I would be a lot less than who I am with it.

The current trend where people post a picture of their current self and a picture of their younger self with the lyrics “I’m so sorry that they pick you last” is bringing up a lot for me. It’s so grueling to look back and think “I could have saved you. Who I am now could have saved who I was then. None of this had to happen.” But of course, it’s a never ending loop. Who I am now only exists because of who I was then, so I could not have saved who I was then without going through everything it took to get to who I am now. Anyway, I thought-spiraled into going through all of my old messages, going as far back as to middle school. It is so heartbreaking to see how truly cruel people were to me. I was so lonely and all I wanted was for people to love me. I tried so hard to get their love. My messages were lengthy, bubbly and cheery. I cared about people, I asked them questions and tried to get to know them, to let them know that I was interested in their lives and who they were. At the time, I had to believe that they were my friends. That they loved me. I needed to believe it. But looking back, I can see how much those things were not true. They would respond with short, rude, cold, uninterested messages. They would never contact me without being contacted first. It almost even appears that they were manipulating my kindness, profiting off of how desperate for love I was. They seemed to be making fun of me, silently laughing at my attempts to receive their love and care. I just feel so bad for my younger self. I feel bad about the world. It makes me deeply sad that such a pure girl who was just trying to be kind and connect with others was met by people who were careless with her heart and abusive of her compassion. I wish I could’ve been there. I wish I could’ve offered her a heart that matched her own.

also if you are feeling like I was last year, I am sorry. I hope you fight and I hope you stay, because there are better things coming for you. It’s cliche and it sounds like crap when you are feeling so sad it aches in your body, and I can’t promise it will get better right away, but it will get better at some point, and it’s worth sticking around for. I love you guys and I hope you have a wonderful holiday!

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.

I am more my father’s child than my mother’s daughter. I wish I could say the opposite, but it would not be true. I am clenched fists with nails digging into my skin. I am marked with scars inflicted by my own hands. I am shaking with anger. I have sharp teeth and I bite. If you tried to get close to me, I would run. I am my father’s child. I have his nose and his eyes and his anger that is too big for my heart to hold.