Gia Raquel

6/12-6/23

I really should be studying. I have a week of finals that I honestly just want to jump over. I should be worrying, but my head is somewhere else.

I find my life a little funny and a bit sad. I’m constantly putting so much stress on myself, trying to get good grades because it’s all I know! Good grades don’t guarantee a good college. A good college doesn’t guarantee a happy life. That’s all I want. I want a happy life. It seems so simple when I put it like that.

A couple months back, I started reading the book, Another Day by David Levithan. In it, was a certain quote that never left my mind. I remember it striking me like lightning when I read it.

“You can make up your homework, but you can’t make up your life.”

It hit me. God, it killed me! Late nights of me stressing and pacing had lead up to that very moment. I was wasting my life caring about such petty things. I cared about drama and grades and opinions and and and!!! None of that matters! I wasn’t living my life. Not really, anyways.

I go out to Manhattan to try to retrieve my sanity and relieve the claustrophobia I get when I think about the universe too often. It absolutely terrifies and excites me knowing I’m going to grow up so quickly. I’m not guaranteed a good life, regardless of all my hard work. So I go out and I live, hoping I won’t miss any more of my life I’ve already missed.

I try to see the good in people when they’ve proven otherwise countless times. I was told recently that I use people like tissues. Once I’m done with them I throw them behind me. I almost laughed. Isn’t that what everyone does? When we graduate, we don’t keep in touch with everyone. We will still talk to a small few, but the rest will probably just receive a happy birthday on Facebook. I am scared of goodbyes, just like the rest. I fear that inevitable shift from ‘friends’ to ‘someone I once knew’. But I can’t let it drain me. Not again.

Over this year, I’ve learned a lot. I find this to be an accomplishment. But there are times where I wish I didn’t have to learn in such a hard way. There were so many days I remember being sad. Everyone around me angered me. I look back, and I realize how unfair it was.

Recently, it was brought to my attention that I’m not given choices. For most of my life, that was true. I was the girl in my family, I was given rules, and I followed them. But I see it differently now. I’m constantly given choices. I just choose the wrong one.

Hatred is a choice. At least, I believe so. And I chose to let it practically consume me. Every day, I remember being so tired and destroyed from my surroundings. I let the world eat away at me as if it were an incurable disease. Looking back, I’m angry at myself. How could I let myself become this? Who was I to demand sanctuary when so many have it worse?

I am tired. I admit to this as if it were a sin. I’m told so many times that I shouldn’t be tired because I’m so young. Sometimes I want to scream back. But I know it’s futile. I witness so many people my age with heavy bags under their eyes. I walk through school and see mental illnesses strewn across faces like masks during Halloween. It’s depressing.

How am I supposed to live a happy life if I don’t even know how?

I have closed myself this year. I let pieces of myself escape through cracks of art and writing. But who am I now? I don’t know.

When will I know?