The date

I remember that day very clearly. Its like my world came crashing down from underneath me and I was being sucked into a black hole and I’ve been falling ever since. Surrounded by darkness, my world was in ruins. Everything was no longer existent to me. All I had worked for; trashed, thrown away. I had never felt so empty inside. Sitting in that room full of a smug happiness, I felt ashamed. I was ashamed that I ever had to sit there in that place and listen to people tell me I’m different from everyone else and I can’t do what other people could do. I was restricted and I always will be. I can’t shake their words out of my mind. They repeat every day in my head. So does the date. Every time it’s said in my mind it burns its way deeper into my brain, never letting me forget it. I felt bitter. The pain of it killed me and took my soul from my own body and wouldn’t give it back. I was lost.
I never could forgive those demons that told me I was different, that I wasn’t normal. I had always wanted an answer but not this one. Not the one that would discourage me and blind me forever from the very world around me. They killed my spirit, my hope that keep me going was thrashed and ripped apart. My faith was sucked out of me like a vacuum had taken it straight out of me. I was alone in my own hell, my own living hell. I thought the pain I had had, was unbearable, but I never had imagined the excruciating, incurable pain that was to come. It dug deeper and deeper, engraving itself in my whole body, capturing it and taking it over. I didn’t think I could ever come out.
The day I went under for the six hours, I imagined never coming out. Just staying in the little dark world and curling up and never unrolling. Turning to stone and never letting myself come back to the real world. As my eyes shut I wanted it to be the last I saw of the world around me. I thought it would be the last of my living hell that I ever had to lay my eyes on. Yet six hours later, I reopened my eyes to the bright, blinding lights. I still was in my world. The one who had my soul and my everything that I had worked for. I felt like I was in a prison. I prison filled with needles, white walls. It was kind of ironic if you ask me, the bright happy colors surrounded by the shiny needles and glum people. Everywhere you would look, you saw someone or something that had a sadness to them. Maybe it was just me, who saw the negative to everything in that place. But I guess I will never know.
The mark it left on me was no longer just mental, it became physical. It was now marked on my body for me to see every day, to remind me of my past and what I used to be. I hated it. I was bitter for it. Seven inches was all it took for me to hate and become a bitter person that dwelled in the sad past. For everyone to see and ask what had happened to me. They always had to wonder. It was so frequent, that I got to be able to tell the story without even thinking. It just became natural. It was a reflex for me to hate them while I was telling them. To wonder why they had to ask and remind me of the fact that it was in fact there. That I had that mark and no matter how hard I tried, it would always be there.
For the longest time I thought that it couldn’t get any worse, that I had hit rock bottom. But I was wrong, I was so wrong. Apparently I wasn’t at rock bottom; I was even close to how low I could actually go. There I was again sitting in the room with all the smugness and answers that I wish had never been uncovered. That could have been buried deep, and never been surfaced. There I was again being told I was even more different and I couldn’t do everything other people could do. Except this time I couldn’t even imagine the feeling. Nothing could have braced me for the feelings that flooded through me the moment I walked into the elevator. I couldn’t go on. I had thought everything had been taken from me, all my hope, my faith, my soul, and everything else that was there. But apparently there was more to be taken, I would have never thought there would be. I felt the life free from my body, my whole life was gone. I couldn’t feel anything anymore. There was no faith; I had nothing to believe in. No reason for me to keep going on. There was no more hope, no hope for me to get through this, no nothing. I was a black hole, within a black hole. I shuttered to the hard tile floor of the elevator, clutching to the metal railing clinging to what I thought was left of me trying to not let go. Despite my desperate effort, it all left, I had nothing absolutely nothing left. I sat crying, more sobbing with all my effort, begging to God to make it stop, make my suffering stop. I begged him for forgiveness to whatever I had done wrong. I pleaded for him to forgive me of my wrong doing and just to not make me suffer anymore. I cried on that floor until I couldn’t cry anymore. I had exhausted all my tears, emptied them out completely. My whole body felt numb; there was no emotion, just a wall of rock that no one could break through. I removed myself from the world. I was empty. I was wretched even deeper into my living hell then I ever would have thought was possible.
There I was again, on the table with the men in masks leaning over me, with the big round lights shining down on me like I was under a spot light. Except it was more like a death spot light, a light of all my feeling and life. It was like it had taken all my energy and pretty much all that had been taken from me and was mocking me with it, shining it in my face, bragging to me. They had all my life in that one room. I wanted it back, more than anything in the world, I wanted it all back. But I drifted off in the blackness that I will always so clearly remember. I was too late. It was gone for good, never to be returned. When I came out I was surrounded by the familiar irony of the white walls and depressed people. I guess I’ll never know whether those people were actually depressed though, I was to bitter and full of resentment to talk to anyone or even associate myself with anyone. I was so done at this point, I was numb all over, and I couldn’t feel a single thing that was happening to me. I hated those who were happy, those who could do what they loved and enjoy it. I hated those people who complained about doing what they loved. I wanted them to be in the position I was in. “They deserve it, I don’t” Is what I would tell myself. Shutting myself off from the world was all I could really do. I shut myself off from the world, my friends, my family, everything. I treated them all like they were nothing. I only functioned when I had to. I was stuck in the past, but as time went on, the past began to fade away. I was losing my grip on it, the last memory I had of the happiness that was once mine.
I thought I could never come out of the horrible place that I resorted to; I thought that this is what had become of my life, that this is where I was going to spend the rest of my life. In sorrow, in despair, with nothing left. The place with no walls, no nothing, just the endless blackness that had swallowed me and I kept falling. But I guess that was where I belonged, where I fit in and needed to be.
I’m guessing by now you think I am a terrible self-centered person, a person that is bitter and evil and was mean to everyone in my life. You probably don’t want to continue reading this because your done with listening to me try to make people feel sorry for me and make tell everyone how much I hate everyone and how bitter I am. But this isn’t about sympathy or hate, it’s about the lesson that was taught through all this. I was bitter in the beginning, I was very bitter. I had nothing else to feel but hate towards others and people. But that doesn’t mean I always stayed bitter, I was bitter for years, and yes I will be honest, I still have some in me.
After all this, one day I saw what I had become, I looked in the mirror and saw the demon inside me. I was appalled by what I saw. I had completely detested everything I had ever been taught, everything I had learned from my parents. I saw those scars on me and seen what they had morphed me into: a monster. I saw the people that I had hurt, the pain and sadness I had caused my parents, my family, and all the people around me. I looked at those scars and told myself that God did this to me for a reason. He did this to me because he wanted me to take this and make something out of it. I was defying his order, what he was asking me to do. I saw what he was asking me to do. I finally could see it. I couldn’t even imagine what he thought of what I was doing, the way I was treating people and handling the situation. I felt ashamed. I was shameful. I knew what I had to do; I had to make it better, I had to turn everything I had done around. Rebuild my ruins I had made back up into something better than it was before.
At that moment, I knew I needed to let go of it. I needed to let it all go and move forward. I cried as I let the past flow through my mind. All those happy images of me dancing and living my dream flowed through my head. I knew it was time. I let it all go. I know that it will always be a part of me, but it is in the past. It will always be in me and I will always be able to say that was me. But it isn’t me anymore; I was not that innocent person anymore. It was time to move on. I will always love it and it will be with me forever. But, it was time to let it go, to let it go to the past where it belongs and stay there. I was hurting others keeping it all wrapped up and blocked out of my mind. It needed to end. So there I stood as it all flowed out of my head. And just like that it was all gone, blown away by the non-existent wind. Sometimes I wonder if it was the Lord who blew all those memories away and helped me let go, but I guess that’s yet another thing that I will never know. It was, after all this time, gone and it was finally time for me to move forward.
I will never forgive myself for the way I treated people, especially my family. All the yelling and snapping and hurting I did and have done to them kills me inside. I wouldn’t blame them if they could never forgive me. The endless support and compassion that they have given me was always pushed aside in my mind. I just yelled and ranted to them blaming them for letting this happen to me. I wouldn’t blame them if they never forgave me for what I did, but it is worth trying. I will always be truly sorry for what I did and how I acted. It is not okay and never will be. I can never repay the debt that I owe them. I owe them all my apologies and that will never be enough. I will always owe them. I don’t think that they will ever know how sorry I really am. There will always be and debt that I can never repay them, a debt that I have caused all by myself.
I have damaged many people, many feeling, and most of all my life. I had torn away and burned my world, piece by piece, into nothing. All that’s left is the foundation and the scraps that were left behind. But there is always room for a new start. It will never be able to be built back up to what it was, it will always fall short of that, but I have to start somewhere. Piece by piece my world has begun to rebuild. The lesson that I took from this may be the most important one that I have ever learned. You need to look at the situation as a whole. Don’t degrade it piece by piece, because believe me when I tell you that there will be more negative piece than positive ones. Yes, there are going to be negative parts that most likely overrule the positive ones, but there is always a way out. God always give you a way out, a way to escape the horror that you are in. You may not believe me, but through this experience, I have learned to trust in the Lord more and know that he makes things happen for a reason. He will never take everything from you and not leave you with something to start new with. You have to take the whole situation and fight through the negative to emerge on the positive.
I guess in the end you have to realize that you can only see what was, not what could have been. Taken away is the was that you can see, but the could have been, it can’t be seen. You can live the rest of yourself wondering what could have been have happened, whether or not you could still be doing what you love or not doing it anymore, or you can carry on in your life and make what is something you love. Whether or not you want to, you have to let go sometime, dwelling in the past is not going to get you anywhere. If anything, dwelling is going to cause you more pain and sorrow than you already have. Letting go doesn’t mean removing out of your mind completely, it mean merely letting go of the tragic past that is keeping you from the world, to finally come to peace with what happened, accepting what happened and coming to terms with it. In the end, you will see that it is for the best even though it may not seem like it now, in the end it will have been worth it. I have burned many bridges, maybe more than that. I will never know the true damage I have caused. All I know is that it is a lot and can never be truly rebuilt. But you have to start somewhere. So this is me starting somewhere, rebuilding what I can, trying to fix all the damage I have caused not only in my own life, but in other. God works in mysterious was, but it is always for the good, you just have to find the good in it. Don’t look at the closed door to long, or you’ll miss the one that he has opened for you. You can never see what could have been, only what was. 10/22/09.