In The Blink Of An Eye

Trying To Remember

Life…

It's full of unexpected surprises that you'd never even dream about in your wildest dreams. We all know things happen and we're given lessons to learn not only about ourselves but others around us. Life isn't like school where you're taught a lesson and then you take a test to see what you learned, it's actually the opposite of that. In life you have the test first in which through that test you are taught a lesson. Most of the time these tests and lessons don't mean anything and we're left with the question of why and what? Why me? Why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this lesson? As much as it may be hard to understand the answer to those questions at the time, usually the answers to the questions make a lot more sense when you look back. 

I've asked myself those questions a million times. Why me? From all the people in the world, why did I have to suffer and feel this pain? What have I ever done wrong to anybody to deserve for such a thing to happen to me? 

At the time, I was mad and I was too stressed to see the answer to those questions even when the answer might have been right in front of me the entire time. I couldn't see the lessons and I couldn't see the reasons behind what was happening to me. It all felt like one big nightmare that just when I thought I woke up and it was over, I would realize that it was a nightmare inside of a nightmare and that it was never-ending. I felt like I was trapped on a rollercoaster that had no ending, one that kept taking me up and down with no end in sight. Just as I would go down and think it's the end there would be another hill to climb right around the corner. 

I've said to myself a thousand times if I could go back and change anything I wouldn't have ever replied back to that text message. It would be easy to blame everything on that one text and say that ever since I replied back only horrible things have happened to me. However, that would be a lie. It was never about that message or the person that sent it. As much as there are times I hate to admit it, I've had some wonderful things come out from all this, things that I could never regret. The things that have made me who I am now and the things that made me the person who not only lived to tell a story but one who survived. Not only physically, but mentally and emotionally survived with scars that will be visible for a lifetime. 

I didn't burn to death that day. 

Some might say it was luck, other's that it was destiny and some would say that it was the right time and the right place. I didn't burn to death that day because the fire that was inside of me burned deeper and more violently than the fire that spread around me. 

It's been six months since the incident. Six months have passed since my life changed forever. Within these months I've spent many, many days and nights questioning every little thing and crying myself to sleep. Each time I saw the physical wounds I would begin to cry but not because of the pain that was on the outside, but because each time I saw those scars and wounds I was reminded of the emotion and mental pain which I didn't know how to cure. As each day passed the physical wounds got better and less noticeable while my inner wounds grew deeper and became more profound. Bruises, cuts, burns and scars all faded in time and with the help of medicine and the doctors around me. It was the wounds that nobody could see that caused me unimaginable pain. So much pain that I couldn't sleep, eat, or talk to anybody. 

I spent hours upon hours in the quiet hospital room thinking to myself and reflecting back on everything that happened to me but no matter how long I thought things through, I couldn't come up with an explainable reason as to why it had to be me. 

For years I dreamt about the day when MWAF would be caught and I would finally be free. Yet, here I was, anything but free. I've obsessed about seeing him for the first time and knowing that he was paying for everything he had done to me and to everyone I loved and cared about. Never in a million years did I think that having him free to do whatever he wants was going to give me more peace than having him locked up behind bars.