From the Dark into the Light

How do you start a love story? What if you told it from the start. No chains to hold you back, no regrets to strong. The past an unwavering impact of who you could be today. What if you could go back, and rewrite the very definition of your unforeseen story? It could change all in one tiny moment. A small chance, a dim light in the dark. My story isn’t simple, nor sweet. Well maybe some moments. But to understand where I am today, you have to journey back about 14 years. It’s my eighth grade year, already halfway through, and I am sitting in the counselors office in the tiny district school. The red and white walls a stark resemblance to the tone in the room. I’m already 14, and my mind was not where it should’ve been for a girl my age. Depression is a b***h. I had just moved to this school at the beginning of the year, leaving my childhood farm. My old friends who didn’t have phones to talk, nor did many of them try even if they did. Life could be…lonely. My mother drones on about leaving her shift at the hospital, working doubles as an er nurse and janitor kept her busy. The school called her out, again. It’s not her fault though, by heavens hell she had seven of us. I was number two in that count. And keeping track of all of us was a task in itself, let alone my dad being gone as a trucker, on top of it all. As I sit twirling my brown thick locks between my finger, I hear the meds I’m on thrown into the conversation, and if I’m real, I have no interest in the topic. Since the age of ten, I’ve attended many sessions of therapy, drs visits, anything to fix the broken child. I can’t help but stare off and dissociate. At this age meds had been a “not a damn choice” kind of situation. And honestly, it probably saved me in the end. Life has been rough already, creepy grandfather and addict older brother guaranteed that. “She is not doing well, Katy is just not focusing on….” The councilor continues… But my brain keeps being drawn to the stupid red bird on that wall. If I had wings like it, I surely would have the confidence and courage to fly straight out of the hell hole I felt I was in. I twisted my long sleeve hem between my fingers fidgeting with the edges of it. The school here was full and lifeless, the flow of other peers as the shoved by one another, whispers of who had secret admirers.. or who was going to a older kids party, some girls crying over boys. Every clichè clic, the jocks, the popular girls, the nerds. Somehow though, I was alone. No clic, no friends. Alone. What a fresh f*****g start this was turning out to be. We didn’t go back to that school again though, somehow my parents thought moving me to an even smaller school, I’m talking population maybe 2000 in the whole town small, would be better. Fresh starts can start anywhere though I guess.