Dear X,
I found an old journal of mine with pictures and paragraphs of how I felt or how my day went. There was a drawing from 2013 of my family asking me about my day, to which I replied 'good.' But I was wearing a mask with a smile and everything around me was dark and cloudy. They didn't know. In another from 2010 my cousin was slapping me across the face saying he loved me. I wrote about how I remembered my sister reading my favorite book to me called 'Nothing At All', and how I told her 'That dog is named Nothing just like me! That's what mom calls me! Did she give you a nickname too?' Inscribed on faded paper were suicide notes, reasons why I didn't like myself, tales of my 'best friend' laughing at me for not liking going out in public with her or doing things over and over again just to get them right. She never understood me. It wasn't until reading that 7 year old journal (I refused to call it a diary) that I realized I did not have a happy childhood.
I've started talking to Madi again. She didn't go back to normal right away which honestly horrified me. I thought she realized she was better without me or how I always take up too much space and I'm always so annoying, I never shut up I eat too much and all the other reasons why I'm useless. I don't want her to leave. I'm tired of people leaving. I don't think she realizes that she means the world to me. I'm just glad that she's still the same. For my birthday she and Katie covered the inside of my locker with 76 sticky notes which have been moved to my room. The rest of my friends tried to make sure I had a good day. It was fun, I promise, but I still wasn't quite happy. I told Parker about it and he didn't say much that helped. When my family celebrated all of the April birthdays (since there are too many) together, my mother told me to give everyone their plates of food and silverware rather than having my cousins do it like usual 'because it's their birthday we're celebrating, after all'. This sounds really fucking cliche, but my eyes started to water and I left the room. Of course. It's not like my name was on the cake. It's not like I had a birthday in April. It's just any other day, and I'll do all the work. I cried in the other bedroom for 10 minutes minimum, and no one noticed I left the room and my face was red, but no one said anything. My mom asked me to do the same thing and I just went with it. I really wish I was somewhere else.
-Casely
