It’s Time for a Cool Change | Teen Ink

It’s Time for a Cool Change

April 4, 2011
By Anonymous

Through the course of life, through the book I have thus far written, that has formed chapters that ended before they began and chapters that have yet to end, I have written a story, a life, a work in progress, and it has just begun. George Bernard Shaw once said, “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” Who I am, I may never know. Who I have become, let me tell you. I have loved and I have lost. I have made lifelong friends and have found mortal enemies. I have taken steps forward and taken those same steps back. I have created trouble and made memories I will never forget. I have comforted and I have needed comfort. I have been faced with obstacles that have made me, created me, transformed me, into the person I am today.
When I was young I was strong. I was confident. I wore the cloths I wanted to and never thought twice about it. I said what I wanted, did what I wanted, and felt what I wanted. I was picked on and made fun of but I knew who really mattered in my life, and the people who didn’t, didn’t affect me. Then I started to care. One day in the middle of the night my mental process changed, transforming me into a paranoid, self conscious, self absorbed teenager. As the blood flowed on that one unforgettable night, I knew I would never be the same. Sprinting to the bathroom, the reflection was foreign. The girl shown was one I had never seen before. Tears glimmered in the light, mascara smeared, eyes puffy and blood-shot, and only the faint sound of blood dripping to the ground mimicked the mental pain, the pain carved into her skin. The eyes that looked back were eyes that showed nothing, no feeling, no emotion, and no sign of life. I had gone from the girl who could care less about what clothes she wore to the girl who cared what everyone thought of her. I became a whole new person, shortening my name, changing my wardrobe, cutting my hair, and taking on a completely new identity. It would take years to shake such an identity from my soul. To set the real me free for all eternity. It took pain to endure, it took persistence, it took heart, and it took time to be the person I always knew I was but could never show. That day started a war. A war that I fought every day from then on up until my senior year in high school when I began to wake up.
Through the years I went from the girl who couldn’t stop talking in class, the girl who got in trouble with teachers for being so outgoing, to the girl who could go an entire class period without saying one word. Slowly my outgoing personality decayed into nothing. I became a routine, no longer a person, no longer living, just a routine. The scars piled up, the pain piled up, and every once in a while I exploded and I prayed for the end. But I must have a bigger purpose in life, for the end never came. I fought that battle, I lost those people, and I no longer could look at myself in the mirror. Life never really got better for me, it just got easier. I don’t know if the cutting just got old, or I learned to deal with the pain better. But in time it became less and less and eventually became an occasional thing instead of a daily ordeal.
After years of denial I finally came true to myself. I stopped telling myself I wasn’t gay and just accepted it. I realized it didn’t matter because it was not who I was, it was just a part of me. But with greatness comes great pain. For now I experienced true love and true loss. Though my heart has been through enough it still is given to everyone I meet. Such a jester has made me vulnerable to the world, and a friend to anyone who may ever need me. Though it is time for me to begin the next chapter of my life I don’t know who I am. I don’t know if I will ever know who I am. I know that I once lived for my own happiness and not the happiness of others. I know that I once talked and laughed till I physically no longer could. I know that sports used to be who I was and all I was and I know that I once told the world I was straight. Now I am the girl who only talks when an opinion rises into my brain, the girl who lives to make others happy but can no longer make herself happy, the girl who gave up sports to fall off the face of the earth, and the girl who proudly proclaims she is gay. This is who I have become, the life I have created; this is who I end the chapter as. Who I will be in the next chapter? I’ll tell you when I know.


The author's comments:
this is a comparison of who i thought i was to who i have created.

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