The Last Time

A child laughs. I turn my head to look out my childhood bedroom window. After looking at the neighborhood kids chase one of the neighborhood dogs across the sidewalk chalk drawings, I begrudgingly return to packing.

My parents are moving. I already moved out of the house to college. But your childhood dies to an even deeper extent once you lose the refuge of where you slept as a child.

How many dreams encompassed this air? How many tears did this pillowcase consume? How many echoes of my laugh lie within these walls? Will my memory live on in this room? Or will it conform to the design of its new resident?

I pick up a dusty old soccer trophy from second grade. I hated soccer. I don’t know why I ever played it. What I really wanted to do was dance. A desire that now seems forever lost.

I set the trophy aside and look at my array of books. My hand is drawn to a collection of fairytales. I used to believe my life could be as a fairytale. A prince would come rescue me. Or I would receive a great fortune. Or I would have a pleasant, comfortable, care-free life. How long ago those dreams were.

Sitting on my floor, I lean against my bed and start flipping through the pages of these fairytales. An ugly duckling grows up to be a beautiful swan. It seemed as though I was still waiting for the results of puberty to sculpt me into a better version of my teenage self. While Hansel and Gretel pushed their captor into an oven and discovered chests full of riches, I had to work multiple jobs just to make enough money to go to school and not end up with thousands of dollars of debt before I even join the workforce. Not only did I not have a prince—toadlike or not—my dating life could adequately be summarized as horribly uneventful.

My heavy sigh seemed to close the book for me. I looked around my messy room and fondly remembered what it was like to be a child in this room. I often ponder about the future; this habit started young.

I dreamed of growing up and being successful in nearly every facet. I would have an abundance of friends, I would be in the school’s student council, I would have a charming boyfriend, I would go to all the school dances, I would be voted ‘Most Likely to Succeed,’ I would graduate as Valedictorian, I would go to a prestigious school and get married and have a family and have money and popularity and all the nice things I could ever want. To put it simply, I had high expectations of what my future held. It’s almost unbelievable how quickly everything can change.

I never achieved that status of popularity. I never went to a school dance. By the time I graduated high school, I’d never been on a date or had my first kiss. I don’t know if I was my school’s valedictorian because they stopped using that form of measurement.

I didn’t give up, however. I went to my first-choice college and managed to feel as confident as a freshman can. Things soon fell apart when my brother shot himself. It felt as though the world turned upside down. If my brother could put a gun to his head, how could anything I knew actually be true?

An accumulation of events spiraled to major rifts in my family. There wasn’t a single person whom everyone would speak to. If my sister won’t even speak to me, how does anything in this world make sense?

Tears began to softly roll down my cheeks. In just a few short years, my dreams had been crushed. Not only did I not get what I had wanted, but tragedies beyond my comprehension had taken place.

How could I spend the rest of my life celebrating my brother’s birthday in a cemetery? How could I pass my sister’s birthday as if it were just another regular day? How could I celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with too many empty chairs?

As I gulp for air, I look to my desk and see a picture. The last picture of my siblings and I. The last picture of our lives as we knew it. Did he know he was going to leave? Did she know she would abandon me?

I stand up and wipe my eyes. I need to pack, not mourn my past. After a few moderately productive minutes, I find a photo album and deem it worthy of a break. I flip through the pages and smile as I reminisce about the adventures I’ve lived.

I pause on one picture. It’s a photograph I don’t recall having ever seen. It’s me, as a child, at a rodeo. I’m wearing a plaid shirt, little boots, and a cowboy hat that is much too big for my head. Through my wide grin it’s apparent that not all of my teeth are present. I chuckle at this image of little old me, unaware of the challenges that lie ahead.

Before turning to the next page, I look at the picture one more time, this time at the background. I’m standing in front of where they keep the bulls during a rodeo. At the precise moment the picture was taken, one of the bulls locked eyes with the camera.

This wasn’t some ferocious beast. This was a living, breathing animal. Like me. Like any of us. I saw myself in this bull. Trapped. Escape futile. Used for others’ entertainment. Disregarded as a living being with a purpose unto itself. The bull is regarded as a violent beast. But maybe that’s just him defending himself. He is attacked and wrangled while onlookers cheer. There is no escape. Only abuse. Any help there might be is the source of the abuse. Maybe all this bull needs is love.

I’ve tried to convince myself I don’t need love. That it’s okay my brother abandoned me. That it’s okay my sister never showed me love—only criticism—as a child, until she walked out of my life. But then why are humans so perfectly formed to hold each other?

Hands entwine effortlessly. A head fits snugly into the crook of a neck. Legs wrap around each other in moments of intimacy. What is left when there is a human without anyone to hold?

I fall asleep at night clutching my own hand. I burn of heat at night. Not because of a body next to mine, but from the weight of my blankets masking my solitude. A stuffed animal always rests in the crook of my arm. But artificial intimacy can only hold for so long.

Perhaps the greatest hurdle is mental. Why am I destined to be alone when all those around me find love every other week? What have I done to disgrace and offend Aphrodite?

I look back out the window at the kids running in the street. When I was their age, I had no idea it would be so hard to find love. To feel loved.

I plump down on my bed, defeated. I had felt so hopeless for so long. I didn’t know how to handle it. No one around me seemed to know how to cope. My brother left this world. My sister blamed her family for all her problems and left. My dad pretends everything is fine. My mom says this is just what life is and we have to deal with it. I’ve never been happy with any of those solutions.

If I am losing hold of my childhood bedroom, then I also must lose hold of my childhood dreams. Those dreams were good, but they didn’t happen. Now it is time to move on to a new bedroom and new dreams.

Since my life began to fall apart, I hid within myself. I became a shell of who I once was. My interests vaguely remained. My joy was all but gone. My laughter was a rare sound. I was simply the broken pieces that remained. The biggest piece was stored in my bedroom.

But now, that bedroom will soon be gone. I must find myself again, become myself again, else I will be left as a broken corpse with a heartbeat.

I can survive by drawing into myself. I go about my business and my life does not intersect with anyone else’s. I can survive that way, but I can’t live that way.

Perhaps, I’ve gone about this all the wrong way. I know what the darkness feels like. I was stuck there for too long. But now I see a crack of sunlight, and I am chasing it.

This world is dark enough, I don’t need to add to it. This is what I tell myself as a reminder to speak kindly to myself. But I don’t need to bring darkness into anyone’s life, either. If I know what that darkness feels like, I should try to bring the light to ease that heavy weight.

People often think the remedy to darkness is pity. It’s not. Nor is it new light. It is old light, faded light. Light that has seen the darkness but prevailed.

Life is full of sorrow. But that doesn’t mean life is only sorrow. Sometimes all that is needed to lighten the load is a smile, a hug, a kind word. So many times, that’s all I wanted, from anyone. And no one was there to offer it to me. But I can offer what I wish was offered to me.

Instead of growing angry or bitter, I can turn that grief into the fuel of kindness. I can be the friend I so often wish I had. I can deliver the homemade treats I was never given. I can give the hugs I so desperately yearned for.

The loneliest place in the world is a crowded room. The happiest place in the world is a crowded room. The difference: who notices you. I was never noticed. So, I will find the unnoticed. The lonely. The hopeless. The tired. They will be mine and I will be theirs. In a world that doesn’t care for us, that throws us down again and again, we will find strength in each other.

Today will not be the last time I feel grief or sorrow. But it will be the last that I allow my hurt to harden my heart and embitter my soul. It is the first time I will fight back. The world has tried to knock me down. The world has tried to crush my spirit. But I will not let the world win. Instead, I will act as living proof that misery is not the end. Rather than letting the world cause me to become bitter and resentful, I will choose to be humbled and softened. I will help others defeat this cruel world.

With a new bounce in my step, I hurry to my desk and open my laptop. I go to Pinterest and start looking up cookie recipes. I need to get busy; I have friends to save.