Recently, I've been having a hard time keeping myself happy. It's been a rough three years and lately I've felt like there's just another bad one coming. Last night I cried the hardest I've ever cried in my life for a reason unbeknownst to me. Today I sat down and opened my box of journals to look back at all the things I've written since 7th grade.

I shocked myself. Before the self-deprecating parts, I opened to three pages worth of "30 Reasons Why I Like Boys (In No Particular Order)." Not only did this freak me the fuck out because I've long since realized my blatent homosexuality, but the list was written the summer of 7th grade and #5 reads- The way their breath tastes after they drink whiskey.
I cannot fathom the horror of my younger years. My younger sister is in 8th grade and just had her first kiss. That alone brings actual tears to my throat. In 7th grade I was worse than I could have ever hidden, and finding that list brought back the memories.
I ripped it to shreds.

I'm writing this cathartically; some of the things next are really painful for me to read, knowing that I wrote them and didn't think that there was anything wrong with it. Every following piece comes from me ages 12-16:

-You are uglier on the inside than you are on the outside.
-For once, I'm happy I'm not skinny enough to see the flaws in my own heartbeat.
-I still have the mixtapes that took me three days to make, they're filled with songs I'd hoped you wouldn't hate and yet... you still left them on my porch with a note that said "you can keep the shirt."
-there are monsters inside of me that look make me look crazy in this mirror. Who am I?
-This is another one of those days when all the truths I hold to be self-evident are so far gone that even I can't bring myself to believe in them.
-Does everyone feel like this?
-I keep wasting all my time writing about feelings I can't feel anymore.
-I sound crazy in my own ears, and I can't talk to anyone about how frequently I've been forgetting to breathe.
-The worst part of it is not the drinking, or the fact that he punched me or the voicemail, it's the fact that I can't even cry about it.
-I'm running out of words that don't mean goodbye.
-I'm so tired of this life that I'm living. I can't find happiness anywhere. I'd rather spend my silence suffocating in bed. I keep trying to get by on this rythmic beating, so in sleep I won't feel any of the things I can't hide from when I'm awake.
-How could anyone know what it's like to live like this?
-This pronoun game is getting disgusting and I hate the fact that I can't even admit anything to myself. Last night I spend 45 minutes in the shower. I was sure that if I turned the water up past 105, I'd be able to burn off the layers of skin that still held his fingerprints. I don't think it worked.


Overall it made me realize the reasons that I'm where I am today. That's not even the half of it, but I don't want to bogg down this journal too. For as long as I can rememeber, I have been unhappy, and I think that with 2010, I am going to try and change this. It upset me so much, and I am really at ends right now. I hope some things start changing for me soon.

-Emma