I don't even know where to begin...
I...think I should just start where I left off. I know it won't be the same and all, but it seems the best solution, for now.
I seemed to have taken a break in the middle of eighth grade... well that was, to be honest, a great year. My teachers were as awesome as I remember them now, and they're probably the few teachers that I miss currently. This was also the year I began my obsession of folding origami cranes. Can you make an origami crane? I didn't, 'till I googled it...:D But I made miniature ones, I made large ones, I made medium-sized ones... and I made them for all kinds of people. People I looked up to, people I hardly knew, and people I held close to my heart. Etc. My birthday was absolutely lovely that year. People wishing me a great day, and compliments all over the place. And a beautiful cake. I'm going to have to post pictures!! Soon after came the end of the school year, and the beginning of a whirlwind of a summer.
Ice cream, books, walking. Smiles, rejection, isolation... some words that describe summer '11. I did however, go to Taiwan. Missed that place SO SO SO SO much. It was great, all in all. Came home with a bajillion trinkets and cherished memories and quoted books and exhaustion...and school started the next day.
The Stereotypical Freshman Year?
I came back to school, adjusting...again. But we saw this video, and it was on depressed and suicidal people. I've never understood... why do people find these things funny? Because in no way whatsoever is this a funny topic. Hopelessness and intentional death... there's nothing to giggle about there. And it threw me off, leaving the next three or four weeks of my life in, yet again, a blur.
Again...professional help came my way. This time I was physically challenged. Couldn't eat, couldn't walk, much less talk, couldn't go to the bathroom... I was just a mess, lost, and elsewhere...
I finally got discharged, though. Finally. The doctor was cautious, seen in his sending me to a partial hospitalization program. But I won't get into the details of that. I'll just say I had a wonderful orchestra concert when I came back, filled with many smiles- not just from me.
There's got to be some light from this, right? "Every painter should start with an entirely black canvas, for the whole world is dark except where exposed by the light." (da Vinci) And trust me, there is. This was the year I got baptized at my church. I had just come out of school the Friday before, my counselor saying that if I didn't come back to school with a doctor's signature, I couldn't come back. I got baptized... November 6th, 2011. A significant day in my life. It was me saying, I'm not saying I'm fully recovered...but I'm saying, I'm giving it all to him, and I'm not turning back. "Because when life knocks you down on your knees, just know... you're in the perfect position to pray."
I never went back to school. We withdrew from my school district, and from that day till the end of the school year, I was homeschooled. And I was okay with it, for the most part.
Yes, life wasn't perfect. No one's life is. But you know what made it feel perfect? The friends and family around me... the encouragement hidden among music and literature... and the beauty of it all.
Wait... What Next?
I'll go more in detail about recent happenings in another post. But I've truly missed this site, and it's such a reminiscently welcoming feeling to come back. :)
A poem I wrote just last night: Next to Love
Thanks so much,
joann :)