June 2012

Never in a million years did I expect to be where I am today. If you told me three years ago where my life would take me, I would have told you that you were out of your mind. How could all of this happen to someone like me? I look around me and I see everything a girl could ever dream of. There is no hate surrounding me. There are no secrets, no lies. There have been ups and all to many downs, but right here, right now, I'm happy. It has taken me twenty five years to actually say it, to actually feel it. Happiness. I don't know how I survived so long without it, but now that I have it I don't want to let it go, I can't let it go, I will do everything in my power to NEVER let it go.

 

 January 2000

At thirteen years old, I've never felt loved. Deep down, I know that my parents love me, whose parents don't? But I've never felt it. My family was never the "I love you" type. My parents would tuck my sister an I into bed, make us say our prayers and with a simple "Goodnight" we were off to sleep. My sister was 4 years older then me and as you can imagine with me at 13 and her at 17 we were at each others throats. We still shared a bedroom and she was off to college in 8 months and she couldn't wait to leave. Leave our house, leave our parents, and leave the sister she never wanted. I on the other hand, didn't know if I could make it in my house without her there to take some of the load off of me.

I remember thinking that night how strange it was that I never actually saw my parents be affectionate to one another. They never hugged or kissed and never said I love you to each other. But I was always deemed the lucky one because my parents weren't divorced. You see all of my friends had divorced parents, they lived with there Mom or Dad but never both. I was "lucky" because I got to live with both. But no one ever considered if I actually wanted to live with both, or if I actually considered myself lucky. What people didn't realize was that I would give anything to have what my friends had, at least one parent that said that they loved them, that showed them that they were special, that didn't make parenting seem so forced. I would give anything to be able to talk to my parents without being yelled at, or to go to them for advice without being told to suck it up and deal with it. I would have given my right hand to be able to talk to someone about boys, I was a teenager for God's sake! But I was the lucky one.

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"Who are you talking to?" I asked my best friend Leah who was the only source of entertainment in my life since my sister went off to college a month before and I couldn't annoy her anymore.

"My cousin Brandon," she said as she typed away on AIM. Leah and Brandon weren't really cousins, they were what I like to call fake cousins. You know the people you see and consider family but aren't really blood related. They went on a camping trip every year together, her along with her Dad and Brother Kevin, and "B" as I soon began to call him with his Dad. They'd spend a week in the wilderness fishing and making fires, cooking whatever they caught for dinner and sleeping in a tent on the ground. Totally not my kind of vacation, but that is what made me and Leah friends, we were the complete opposite. She listened to Limp Bizkit, and I listened to *NSync, she went camping and I spent a week on the beach, she had a friendship with her brother while I begged to get attention from my sister. She lived with her Mom and was happy, while I lived with both of my parents and wondered if I'd ever be able to get out of the Hell I was living in. She had everything I wanted but couldn't quite get my hands on, in my eyes, she was the lucky one.

I practically lived at Leah's house during the summer and on the weekends. I'd give any excuse I could find to my parents to let me go over to Leah's, so that I could get away from the fighting and have some peace and quite. It didn't hurt that Leah basically got to do whatever she wanted and she was allowed on the computer for however long she wanted when I was only allowed an hour at a time. Over the next couple of months when Leah would get too tired to talk on AIM anymore she'd leave me down there because she knew it was a treat for me and let me talk to Brandon who always kept me entertained. After a while we started to become friends ourselves, we stopped talking about when he and Leah would do when they hung out, and started talking about ourselves.

 For some reason it was so easy for me to share things about myself with him. I always felt like I couldn't talk to anyone and tell them how I really felt, and it was so easy for me to open up to him. I don't know if it was because I'd never actually met him, or if he couldn't see me or what but I found myself telling him everything I've been holding inside of me for so long, and he listened. He actually LISTENED to what I was saying, and didn't yell at me or tell me that I was wrong he listened and understood. And soon I didn't just talk to him when I was at Leah's house, but I found myself running to the computer when I'd get home from school everyday hoping he'd be online so we could talk. He was my outlet, I needed him like a drug addict needs their drugs. I didn't know this at the time but he was my person.

ris687: I just wish that I had a differant life, that I could change it all. I wish that I could tell other people what I tell you and not get yelled at or put down. I just wish I could make it all go away.

bman615 : what do you want to go away?

ris687: i don't know really, the yelling, the fighting, the people. i don't feel like a normal family. i'm the problem at least that's what they tell me. Did I tell you that they are making me go see a therapist now? I'm 13 years old and I have to go sit on a couch like a 30 year old with too much stress in there life.

bman615 : are you serious? what does this therapist say?

ris687: she tries to get me to talk about my feelings and asks me why i do the things i do, and honestly i don't think that i do anything that is so awful. teenagers like to rebel, especially teenagers like me who dont want anything to do with being at home. they should be happy i'm not out doing drugs, but they're not. all they can focus on is the fact that i don't talk to them or tell  them anything. they just dont get it, they dont get that they are the problem. this lady put me on meds like i'm some sort of psycho. get my dad in there and then tell me if i'm the problem.

bman615: are you serious? they put you on meds? thats so dumb. its not you Maris, I promise. from what you tell me its them with the problem. i'm sorry you have to go there, i'm sorry you have to deal with all this, it's not fair but i'm here for you whenever you need me, forever, no matter what you know that right? 

ris687: yeah i know. and thank you. honestly, i don't know what i'd do without you. but i g2g, my hour is up and my mom is on my ass. thanks again, i now i say it all the time but i really mean it. thank you.

bman615: your welcome sweetie, sleep tight.

He was my person. I trusted him, for the first time in my life I trusted someone. I had someone on my side, I wasn't alone and I could make it through this with his help. He's here for me forever right? At least I think so.