Choosing Life

Chapter 5

 Finally I wrote a note to my parents. I cried throughout the whole thing, but I couldn't see another way.

This is it. I'm gone.

That's probably what I would've written if I had wrote this just before, in anger or feeling whatever I was feeling at the time. For example if my parents or Jackson were arguing with me or something. But I didn't want to write this note in hate, and I didn't really want to make you feel guilty. Because even though we weren't the best family, I knew that you guys always tried.

I've been struggling with this for a long time. Ever since around Year 5 or 6, but lately it's become so hard. I think that it started getting way more serious from the start of this year.

I won't lie and tell you that I would've tried to tell you, because you always seemed to be so proud of me, and I never wanted to ruin that. Part of the reasons that I felt that I had to do this, probably might not make sense to you. Really it's a combination of everything in life. I've never felt good enough - good enough compared to Jackson (my brother), to the other 'extended family', good enough at gymnastics, at cheerleading, at school. Maths 5.3A is sometimes so hard for me, I don't always do good in Science, and I feel like there are so many expectations on me, to get a good job, to do something with my life.

People always asked me what I wanted to be. But when they do that, I don't know what to say. People say I should be things like a lawyer, the next prime minister, a doctor, all of these things and more. But what if I just wanted to buy a farm and live a simple life among nature and animals? (Not that that's what I wanted, though it does sound kind of nice).

Psychology. Maybe now you'll understand why I wanted to be a psychologist. I wrote a bunch of essays (actually they're sort of like my diaries, I have to type them to get the words out fast enough and their each over a thousand words) and one of them is why I wanted to be one.

When I was smaller, every time you would fight with each other, I would climb up the tree and sit in there and listen to music and cry. You used to always find me there, and that one time in the night you went looking for me, I was there, watching a little family of birds sleeping together a few branches away. That would help me to calm down enough. But I was so much younger then, and now I feel so guilty because I left Jackson, who was 5 years younger than me, to see you guys. And I should've been with him, telling him that it was alright, and I didn't. And Jackson I'm really sorry for that.

I knew from all those talks at school and from research tasks and my own research that I was suffering from depression, and I wanted to be able to help others going through it. But I also wanted to help you guys. Be honest to yourself, and to each other, I think you all do or did before. But you need to talk to each other, all three of you, because it will make it so much better.

I hope maybe you'll understand now. Dad, on the day when the Germans first arrived, and there was a 'party' at our house, that I hated with a burning passion? I broke down in my bedroom, and to be honest you didn't really care. You didn't listen to me, and you let me. And I don't want to blame you, but you needed to understand just how hard that was for me, how hard that situation was for me. You just left me, told anyone who asked that I was just being difficult, and maybe you even forgot about it. January the 2nd.

I hated having those huge family gatherings. There I had to be so perfect. They had more expectations of me than you guys, because though you guys saw how I struggled and stressed sometimes, they didn't. They saw me as someone who always got straight A's, they didn't see my problems and struggles too. And every time at one of those gatherings, they would ask me what I wanted to be. That is one of my most hated questions, because even if I had said a clown or a hippie or a taxi driver, they already had in their minds an answer. They wanted me to be a lawyer. So I would just say that I didn't know. You would think that if I didn't straight up say that I wanted to be a lawyer then they would get the hint and stop pushing it. But I guess they just wanted the best for me.