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Sunday, September 26, 2010

My Courage, My Pride, My Self

When I started my first year of college, I was completely alone. The first thing I was told to do was to go to the school’s counseling center, and what did they do? They shipped me off to someone off campus; I was too “high-risk.” I was still suffering from depression and still cutting myself on a weekly basis. I felt like I had nothing going for me, so I would stay in my room, sleep all the time, and find random people to drink with just so I could feel like I had friends. I was not having fun. I would run to the bathroom and sit in there for hours on the floor or the toilet with a knife in my hand and gauze pads and tape, cutting at myself until it hurt, until I cried, until I felt that pain more than feeling unloved and alone.

Then at the end of my first semester, I met a girl that would I would eventually stay close friends with. She would become the person I first opened up to in college, my first real friend. She helped me in many ways, from just listening, to just being a friend, to giving me good words of advice. I thought she was a godsend, especially after she called helping people “her purpose.”

“Purpose”

It’s like you awake from a dream
And everything’s in its place.

No empty sky,
No burning lye,
No bleeding thigh.

The magic in the air gives such a succulent moment of euphoria,
It’s almost as if you don’t exist,
But you awaken anew
To find the girl in blue
Tying her shoe
Making her debut.

The ball bounces a few times on the walls
And suddenly it hits you,
The answer to the question of how you will ever make it,
How you will ever survive in this newly built dungeon of hell
After the howling farewell
Where you lie as a blank shell.

Blue…Blue…Blue…it repeats in your head,
And you experience a sudden lack of dread.

You feel good,
Like you never knew you could.

Hair up, knee socks, and a face as cute as a button.
Not trying to make a pass, you insist,
And the chuckle around the room persists.

It was the answer from up above,
Another angel of God’s to love,
And she fit in your life like a hand in a glove.

Previously alone,
You find a home in the most unexpected places.

Now that I look back, now that I’ve had time to reflect on my life so far at college, I see that it was not a cosmic occurrence that helped me through my first semester at college. Most people would see my finding of a great friend as lucky. That could never happen to me. I’m not that type, I never make friends, people don’t like me…well…I used to think those exact thoughts. Then my therapist at the time told me some great advice; you have to go out and find and talk to people to make friends. Because if you don’t go out there and put yourself on the line and be your genuine self, you will never find a true friend. And so I did just that. This girl came into a room I was drinking in, because I felt alone and drinking was a way to cope. At that moment, the words of my therapist came into my head. I started thinking, she is nice, she is talking to me, I’m going to take that leap and talk back. I’m going to be me, be my funny self, not hide behind anything. I’m going to ask her to hang out. And so we met up again, hung out together, and started to become very close. And it wasn’t just luck, it wasn’t divine intervention, it was me. I built up the courage, broke out of my shell of isolation, and I made the step to make a friend. It was one of the best things I have ever done, and most likely helped me get through my first year at school. And when I think of that night, I become so proud of what I did and how I helped myself make a friend. And I am glad I’m proud. I love it.


-Starfish

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