Day one of the end of my life.

The first day of the end of my life was on January 1st, 2010. I was beaten and tortured emotionally by my own family for years up to that point, but that was the end of me. My Dad walked out the door New Years morning, and so did my best friend, my hero, and my past. I watched him pack my heart in his little black suitcase and drive off with it into a cold new year. I watched as my little brother cried, and my mother begged. I just sat there. I didn’t try to stop him. I didn’t expect him to ever leave, but somehow I knew that by letting him go, I would never see him again. He never came back after that, not the same dad I knew anyways. He was broken. Divorce is the death of love, marriage, and family. It is murder, or at least that’s what I used to think.

Divorce completely consumes everyone involved and leaves no trace of the love that two people once shared. My parent’s divorce sent me into a depression that nearly stole my entire life. I had no one, and nothing could help me escape from it. I felt alone and desperate for a way out. I was unloved and uninvolved in my own life, so I sat on the sidelines watching my parents make mistakes too big for me or anyone else to fix. While the police began to visit our home on a regular occasion, my father’s affair with a family friend began to unravel itself from a web of lies that engulfed and destroyed my mother completely and nearly took me with her. Each day was harder than the last, and I desperately needed to move on even though my parents would not let me. I betrayed my mother, father, and brother, but most of all, I betrayed myself by allowing life to push me to my limit without putting up a fight first.

The human soul has the beautiful capability of growth, and after seven months among the dead, I found the living. I climbed out of my depression to find that outside of my own life, bigger things were happening. Better people would show me love in unselfish ways that I had yet to experience. Each day is a new day, with new opportunity and a fresh start. Despite prevalent sin and betrayal, I will forgive and hopefully never forget the people that hurt me and love me the most. I forgave myself for all that I wasn’t proud and was able to move on. I still have bad days, but now they cower behind all the good ones. Through the divorce, I learned a valuable lesson about people. No one is perfect and everyone is a little selfish. Family isn’t always there when you need them the most, but God is always present and all-knowing. With every end comes the possibility for a new beginning, like new growth after a forest fire. The deepest strength, courage, depression, love, and pure emotion is sometimes where we would never expect to find anything at all, within ourselves.

My life began on January 1st, 2010. It marked a period of hardship almost unbearable; however, it made me grow and mature to become a stronger person with more knowledge of the world and people as a whole. Life is what you make of it. Other people’s decisions don’t define us. We define ourselves by our choices and our outlook on life. I choose to see obstacles as learning experiences, and I embrace change because few things in life are guaranteed or stable. I choose to live, laugh, and love with my whole heart, the way everyone should. So here my life begins…

Day one.