I suppose many people have learned to enjoy life at a young age. Learned to laugh and smile and simply be happy. How they could laugh at the smallest of things, always be grinning, and love things deeply and truly. To be able to shake off the hard times, and learn to embrace sadness as something that could help improve them in the future. To develop the sense of feeling.

For me, life have never been the wonderful fantasy that the world has tried to teach me. It is more of an illusion, than actual reality. Like a bush of roses, so beautiful, but running over to pick one leaves droplets of scarlet of one’s finger. Life was really just the lovely illusions that we have tried to make, I guess. Or, I hoped.
Life has never been kind to me, or perhaps it was, but I was too drawn by the darkness to notice the light and goodness. At a young age I was exposed to many things that I did not like, not of those that I did, like many other children of my age. I was faced with this philosophy that if I wasn’t the best, then I was a failure. This was the moment where my life turned upside down, with my life dangling on a rope, near its breaking point.
In addition to my fear of failure, it also dawned to me that I just did not fit into the world I was placed in. Where I went, people bullied me. When I spoke, people would find what was wrong with it. When I laughed, people gave me strange looks.
There isn’t much I can say now, about those feelings, the bullying. But back then, though, I was driven almost insane.
At age 5, I was picked on my girls who were older than me, laughed at, and teased.
At age 8, I was excluded from groups and there was rumors about me.
At age 9, I was known as simply, ‘that girl’.
At age 11, my best friends left for another country on my birthday.
At age 12, my only friends were books.
At age 13, someone was tearing at my insides and drove me practically insane.
And now, even though conflicts have been solved, new challenges arise. I don’t think my life is one of those sob stories in which stupid junk just happens, it’s more than just that. Academics, bullying, were two very minor things compared to the battle I have fought within for almost 4 years.
A battle in which I almost lost, a battle that I’m glad I won.
And my reward for winning,
Happiness.

Through my life, there was one motto I lived by, and it was that life is fair, for it is unfair to everyone.
It was another one of those lies I tried to use to deceive myself.
Math was one of the few subjects that I absolutely hated. And although I’m not bad, I don’t have a love for it, just a dark, hateful past.
I started it at the age of 8, perhaps, and worked my way up to Algebra and Geometry in 5th grade. A small achievement on my part, maybe a few bruises, a broken soul, and a ruined life.
Let us say I was never good at it, how I was not built for it, and I don’t do it because it’s something lovable. I remember the pain of being unable to solve answers, of being stuck for not knowing them. I remember the sadness of locking myself up in a room thinking myself a failure, of failing big math competitions. I remember the anger for being judged unfairly, or being assumed  that I loved math simply because I was slightly better than average. I remember having my favorite pencils snapped for not writing big enough, having hours of work torn because I accidentally skipped a few steps.
I remember, and I did not forget.
I remember how each day a little bit of my soul was lost and swallowed up into an endless void, how each day any signs of hope would fade. I remember pondering the meaning of life, and if it really was worth living. I remembered trying to draw my own blood. I remember the times when my hands shook because I feared of getting something wrong, and crying if I did. I remember wanting to die because I couldn’t do it, and my family thought I wasn’t fit enough to be theirs. I thought I was stupid and broken and dumb, and I wasn’t worth loving, and nobody would care it I just… died.
I guess those thoughts were voiced when I met someone who pointed out all my flaws, my weak points, how bad I was at things, how dumb and cruel. But by then my mind was just… blank, and there was nothing, for I had stopped carrying whatsoever. I was thrown in darkness, with no one to lend a hand.
I lost my mind when I was 11, it took me nearly two years to find it again. To find a light worth reaching towards.
It was someone who stopped and paused to look at a girl who could literally vanish into shadows and be forgotten. To notice the girl whose face was always buried behind a book, a girl who had given up reality, and prefered the world in books.
And someone who didn’t quit when she shoved him away over and over again, always extending a hand back for her, unknowingly, or perhaps even knowingly.
My guardian angel I suppose.
Who made sure I would see it through the worst, and see beyond the darkness and awful sadness. Who coaxed out the laughter, made me feel the goodness of the world again. Who, although a stranger, who just listen and never judged, but never treated my like a beaten puppy. Like I was more an equal than I broken thing.
Had not for him, I might be gone.
Had not for him, I might still be stuck in darkness.
Had not for him, I could have turned into a cruel, cruel thing.
Had not for him, I might not have ever felt anything again.
Had not for him.

Now, I can see the world in a whole new way. No longer just the dark place where no light can reach, but  place with sunshine and light and hope. A place that isn’t perfect, but is more than perfect. How although there is pain and sadness, there is goodness as well.
I guess I have never truly seen through its illusion until now, how unlike everyone else, instead of seeing how wonderful it is, I saw how awful it is.
Life isn’t a nightmare anymore, but it isn’t a dream either. It is more like… a mixture of hope and beauty but also sadness and darkness.
Life truly is fair, for it is unfair in it own way to everyone. It is only whether if you learn to embrace it, or hate it.
Once I hated it, but now I have learned to love it, and enjoy it.
I have finally discovered something that is more valuable than gold and diamonds and silk and perhaps even love and hope.
I have found something true and wonderful.
I have found my happiness.

And I hope you find yours, wherever it may be.