TOO YOUNG TO BE SO SAD(ECCEDENTESIAST)

ONE

I've always yearned for a life as carefree as my classmates, one where my worries are limited to the basics, just like any regular kid's life. A life where my thoughts revolve around simple matters: what outfit to choose for prom, how my makeup appears before school, deciding on breakfast options, strategizing to succeed in my senior year and secure a spot in the finest Texas college. Hoping that my crush picks the same school, composing love letters, and solving romantic riddles. Figuring out how to gracefully exit a dare that leads to a complex love triangle, even contemplating the right hair color to experiment with.

These small things are what make stepping into adulthood enticing, but as you know, desires and prayers don't always align with reality. If they did, my mother – the woman I never knew in my childhood – the same woman who left me with a note that simply said, "BE HAPPY, MY LITTLE BABY," before vanishing, might have been here to ease my burdens. She was deeply devoted to her Christian faith, raised in a church where my dad encountered and wedded her without questioning her background. Whenever I come across her teenage photograph, displayed in our living room by my dad, I see her beaming with joy, holding a hymn paper and dressed in a choir robe.

I pondered whether she had experienced an easy life or if her journey had been equally challenging. At only three years old, accompanied by my eight-month-old sister, she departed. Although I don't hold any resentment, there's a struggle within me. I marvel at the mother-child bond as other kids receive lunch packs and goodbye kisses, yet I've never yearned for one.

My father's indifference meant that I fought tooth and nail to survive, maintaining a facade of well-being for my peers. He returns home late, intoxicated and with different women each night. He cares only for himself, disregarding my sister and me. At age 10, he laid down rules, warning us not to trouble him, under threat of expulsion from his house. But the truth is, I actually long for a father-daughter bond more than a mother-daughter one.

Drugs entered my life at ten, triggered by witnessing my father's affair and the subsequent beating. Fleeing home, I met someone who introduced me to a life of drug use. Years passed, and I became an addict, concealing it from everyone, even my sister. Therapy wasn't an option; why give up what brought me solace?

I'm isolated, lacking friends. In school, my sister shines while I maintain a distance, refusing to let anyone close. People call me a psychopath or a ghost classmate. They can't fathom the demons I wrestle with. Each smile conceals a storm within. Bringing a friend home led to months of confinement once, so where do I turn?

Left, where nothing feels right? Or right, where nothing's left? I struggle to ask, to accept who or what I've become—an eccedentesiast. And you?