To This Day...

The video To This Day by Shane Koyczan started making me think about the "What if's" of my life, and, I will tell you this straight.

I would have been dead.

I would have been dead or worse if I hadn't had my Mom, a loving surrogate Dad, and my brother (despite the way he treated me in the past.)

Why I'm saying this is, because some of the things I went through, no kid should have to.

A family member hurt my brother, and it affected me. It started making me cherish sleep that way the next day I could forget all that had happened the previous day - a restart if you will.

I lost the only person I felt understood me even though he was a silent, and distant man when I was 9. My brother and cousins felt put off from him, but I saw him in a different light - a light that I was happy to have until he was taken from me. To this day, I want to cry over his death even though I know he's here with me all the time anyway.

In middle school I started listening to rock music in order to heal the scars that were starting to become more apparent to me. I'd run away into my music and my writings just to escape into a world that was all my own; regretfully, I don't remember what I wrote about, but I remember a field trip to another middle school where my beautiful vampire story was cut short, because...well...it was supposed to be a short story.

Rewinding back to elementary school brought me into a need for something more to read besides the picture books I was assigned to read even though I wanted to read Harry Potter, but they wouldn't let me seeing as I read too slowly so it'd take me a couple weeks to get through one instead of an entire week instead.

Going into middle school, I screamed hallelujah, because I could finally read whatever I wanted to. I headed straight for the Harry Potter section, and never looked back once. In high school, I found Amelia Atwater-Rhodes and proceeded to read the entire Kei'sha Ra series while Twilight and Vampire Diaries came into fame.

By the time high school was in my life, I was listening to Avenged Sevenfold, Linkin Park, and anyone that made my ears sing with joy as I was dying my bangs every color of the rainbow while sporting Tripp pants, spikey hair, and baggy clothing because it was who I was.

Yes, the scars were still there, and, yes, there was new ones added every day either by my own naivety or by those around me who wished to see my innocent mind be crumpled by the weight of their words. Sometimes, I fell into what they wanted, but never around them - always when I was alone or with my family (of course, my family weren't too sympathetic unless it was serious.)

In Junior year of high school, I wanted to slit my wrists, and be gone from this world, because the scars had become too much of a burden to bear on a soul as innocent as mine is. I had bouts of anger, yes, I got jealous, anxious, but my worst fault is my possessiveness.

To this day, I don't want to be unincluded in a conversation I know nothing about, because, if I get left out, my jealousy flairs. If I don't know what you're talking about to someone else I'll silently stew in my own silence before I lash out when I'm sure the other party isn't around to witness it. Sometimes, silence doesn't bother me, but, other times, it seriously does.

As soon as I got old enough to speak you couldn't shut me up, don't try Duct tape - I figured a way around it. I have a habit I've been breaking over the last six years that has started making my Mom and brother like me a little more than they used to - I read out what I'm currently reading. Whether it's a fan fiction or something funny - I always read it out load when I enjoyed the funny parts. Now, I silently, or, never do it at all anymore.

I think I'll stop this for here tonight.