Running Towards the Sea

beginning

I've only ever wondered why God would let me hurt like this. I always thought I was an okay person growing up, I mean I was too quiet to really be mean to others, and my thoughts never really strayed away from how much I hated myself. So I never knew why God made me hurt like this, made me so different in this way. Despite how it may seem, I don't necessarily hate my truth, just my situations. I hated being teased by the girls in my class, hit by the boys, sneered at by the teachers. I hated how I never got privacy, how my changes happened in front of prying eyes. I never got the chance to fit in, to be painfully boring and the person everyone simply looked over. That was my curse. Their eyes bore into me like the burning sun on a hot summer day, unescapable. I wished for fall, or spring, or winter. I wished for the sun to tire, and hide behind a tree for a nap. Instead I was stuck in a desert, being beaten by the unending rays.
I chose to go to school far from home. My plan was to start over new, try to hide like I'd always desperately hoped I could. So I ran. I ran to the coast, to a school hours away from my hometown. I ran to a place that I knew no one from my old life would stumble upon. My parents weren't necessarily the most accepting, but they still helped me. I think they saw me fighting my own skin and couldn't bear to think about what I might do given the chance. So they sat on my floor and helped me fold my clothes, organize my games, and tuck my life away into a suitcase and backpack. They took me to the train station and held me, crying, whispering names I didn't love but endured. Endured, knowing soon enough I'd leave those names in the city I began in, grew in, changed in. I could leave everything behind, start new.