Dear Dad

June 23rd

June 23rd,

Well, I did it. I graduated high school. I still have no clue where I'm going with my life. I guess I'll just find out on the way to wherever.

Anabella's funeral was on the sixteenth. I wasn't too fond of the funeral home. They did her hair wrong. The place was pretty empty. Her dad was there. He sat in a chair in the front row the whole time and didn't move. Her mom showed up for maybe five minutes, cried a little, and left. I guess she didn't want to be anywhere near her ex-husband.

At the end everyone left the room except for me. I stayed behind to say one final goodbye. I stood over her and ran my fingers through her hair. It was the same dark red color but yet it had seemed to dull. She told me a while ago that her hair color was natural. I said I didn't believe her, it was such a gorgeous color it had to be fake. But, she insisted she had never dyed it. He face was pale and her skin was cold. I reached into the casket and held her left hand. I pulled the ring I planned to propose to her with out of my pocket and put it on her finger. It fit like it was made for her. I placed her hand back and kissed her one last time. I went home and cried for the next few days.

I spent the days since her death reading all of her papers. I've finished all of them except the one she told me to read. I was saving that one for last. All of the other ones were brilliant.

I sat down on the couch in the living room and opened the binder. The top of the paper read "My World" in swirly writing. I started to read it. From the first sentence I knew I wasn't going to put it down. It read,

The world is a strange place to everyone. You can try to deny it all you want but you know that the world will never make complete sense. There's always going to be those strange things that baffle and confuse you and those things that dazzle and delight you. Like love. It's something that's not exact. You never seem to fall in love the same way twice. Or what about life as a whole? Have you ever met someone who has the exact same life as you do? Someone who is in the same situations, someone who acts and reacts the same as you, someone who thinks the same as you, you've never met someone like that have you? Life is different through everyone's eyes. To me the world is a hard, harsh, beautifully mixed up place.

My name's Anabella. I've never happened to come across another Anabella but I'm sure I'm not the only one. I was born gifted. I was born mute. I've never spoken a word in all the years of my life. I can't even scream or laugh. It's not a disadvantage, it's an advantage.

I think because I'm different I think differently, which to me is a good thing. How do I know I think differently? Well how many times in your life have you ever questioned, do other people think the same as you? How many times have you gotten up in the morning and realized, woah I'm breathing, I'm alive, I'm living, I have thoughts, I can control what I do, this isn't a book or a movie, this is real life? Because I do that almost every morning.

I've gone to public school since kindergarten and have never had a single friend. I guess no one wants to be friends with the girl who can't tell them that they're right about everything.

I'm in high school now and it's an interesting rollercoaster. One day you feel like you're on top of the world, an invincible, unstoppable, powerful girl. No one can get in the way of what you're working towards. Then the next you feel like you want to curl up and hide. Something I realized when I was very young is that the universe has to balance itself out. Something great happens and you're so happy and you feel great and then the universe has to go and balance itself out by having something horrible happen that brings you down. I think that when this happens it's kind of like the world saying it's time for a reality check. It's the world's way of telling you that life isn't always smiley faces and rainbows, but it also isn't always thunderstorms and darkness. It's a medium.

When I entered high school I expected to be that lonely girl who sat by herself and spent her weekends in her room studying. I never expected that I would meet someone who would sweep me off my feet and teach me to forget about the thunderstorms and darkness in the world.

I started to cry again.

When I first saw Rhyder I knew I needed a way to meet him. I was shy and going up and saying "hi" clearly wasn't an option. So, I never told him this but, I unscrewed the screws in his locker and stood around the corner every day waiting. I was waiting for the day when his books fell so I could help him and have an excuse to meet him. The thirteenth of September was the lucky day, the day that changed my whole life. I rushed over and helped him and from the moment I looked up into his sparkly blue eyes I knew it was love.

Rhyder was always there for me. He spoke up for me when I couldn't, which was always. He stood up to bullies for me, he comforted me when my mom left, and he defended me when things got rough with my dad, which is something I couldn't believe he did. My dad's an intimidating guy!

Rhyder's the most amazing guy I have ever met. He's kind, and sweet, and gentle, and sensitive, but he's also strong which is good because I'm not a strong soul. He makes you look at life a little different, a little better.

Life is so much different when you're in love. The world's happy. The sun shined a little brighter and air smells a little sweeter. I wish the world was always that happy. But, life gives you what it thinks you can handle. I can't handle that much and apparently life thinks I'm strong but, I'm not. I could deal with bullies. They'd always been there and being the victim became a second nature. But I couldn't deal with the loss of the person who brought me here in the first place. My mother left in my sophomore year of high school. She walked out in the night and I haven't seen her since. After that my father took his anger out on me. The worst part about it is that I didn't do anything about it because I thought I deserved it. No one deserves that. No one deserves to be treated that way. I made myself believe that I did though. I made myself believe that I deserved worse. That is why I, Anabella, on June thirteenth have decided to take my own life. I have made this decision to show life that no one should have to go through this. I hope that all of you reading this will consider me a martyr for the cause of showing life that it needs to be easier on people. That people's hearts can only take so much.

In life you get to decide who you are, what you like, and where you're going to take yourself. You can be a boring person and live an average life or you can be someone, do something, and have an adventure, no matter how small. Even if your adventure is just meeting a boy, falling in love, and living everyday like you love life. To me that's a great adventure and I'm happy that's the adventure I decided to have.

I put down the binder and cried. I cried because her words were beautiful. I cried because she was beautiful. I cried because I've lost so much and never really realized how strong you have to be to put up with losing that much. I've lost my dad, my old home, my friends, a little bit of myself, and the love of my life. What more is the world going to take from me? I wasn't going to let it win though. That's not what Anabella would have wanted. She wouldn't have wanted me to quit because time got hard. She'd have wanted me to take the lessons we've learned and spread them. She'd want me to try to make the world medium instead of thunderstorms and darkness.

I have no exact plan of what I want to do with my life but I know that it's not going to be wasted sitting in California crying. I got up, took the binder and got in my truck. I started the engine and drove. I was going to Florida. I was going to write. I was going to write about Anabella, and us, and life, and how it's beautifully mixed up and that's just how it's supposed to be. Life's an interesting thing. One minute you think you have it all figured out and the next you're left wondering what else it could possibly throw at you. I guess that's what makes it life. It wouldn't be life if everyone knew exactly how things were supposed to turn out. If everyone knew the future then there would be no future, it would just be the past, right now, and the rest would be one big deja vu. It's not supposed to be clear and planned out, it's supposed to be full of twists and turns and surprises. That's what makes it an adventure.

So, Dear Dad, and Anabella too if you're reading this, I love you both. I'll never forget either of you. I'll never forget how you both taught me not to follow the rules and expectations of the average Joe life. Dad, you gave me this journal when I started middle school and told me to fill it with my adventures. So, I did. But, know that my adventures are far from over. I'm only eighteen, my life's just beginning.