Shadows Among Fire

I am a Shadow

I heard her words with a certain, specific distaste. I'd heard that tone before from her and everyone else. There was no kindness, there was no hate; it was simply cold. The kind of cold that breathes into the hearts of others, with no hesitation. Even though I usually wait for my girlfriend, but that day I just couldn't bear to talk to anyone.

Perhaps it would have turned out better had my past been different. I was homeschooled until grade 7, when my mother forced me into a charter school. Naturally, I hated the thought. But also naturally, there was a distinct pull to the social world of hormonal teenagers. I, being an anti-social, socially awkward introvert, knew the transition would be hard. It took two years for me to conform.

Grade 7 was my lonely year. The only person who spoke to me regularly besides my teachers was a girl, Alice, whom I fancied from day one. But even she never really talked to me in the traditional sense, she simply asked me how I was doing everyday. I spent my lunch period sat next to the outdoor lockers, and after a while I think I just sat there to hear her voice.

Grade 8 was my emo year. The typical death, darkness, depression, etc. etc. I segregated myself from the few friends I had made, and delved into the world of self-hate and overall hatred of the world and everything in it. Towards the end I got new friends, and I was even accepted into my school's mentoring program. But all this, good and bad, led into the worst year of my life.

Before I continue, I'd like to point out that my life before this had been filled with depression and further emotional and mental problems. I've had abandonment anxiety all my life, and I can keep my cool until I reach the point where I explode with anger. I had also held a faltering relationship with my mother, who basically left my dad to raise me and only stuck around to yell at me and tell me what a failure I was. Now, my family is a mixture of racists, sexists, crackheads, and most of them are more stubborn than an ass. So I, having grown up with this, developed my issues according to my family's continually mistakes. I developed abandonment anxiety because whenever I let someone in they either turned on me or left. The former led me to severe trust issues, only worsened when I continued to let people in. For these reasons I stayed a shadow until grade 9, when I flung myself into the fire.

Grade 9 was the worst year of my life. I had no breaks from the ongoing stress and heartbreak. The worst of it started the summer before, when my only biological uncle died on cancer. I didn't really know him, but he was the most direct male link in the line to my grandfather, who passed when I was 5. I have been told that I resemble my grandfather, but I would not know. The death of my uncle was soon followed by the death of a dog I had known and owned since I was five. Although there was much bad in this year, there was also some good. For starters, I went to my first school dance, and I invited Alice. About a month later, I officially asked her out about a month later. She was my first girlfriend, and the best thing that ever happened to me. But even with her love and support, I had the biggest fight of my life. This was the year I started cutting. For months, I would cut my left arm daily, and I would often find myself crying and feeling desperately alone. Despite having more friends than ever before, I shoved them away more and more, and they felt it, and they responded. Apart from the daily conflicts with just about everyone, I absorbed myself in 'helping' them, because they needed help more than me. And it wasn't until my friend, Cheri, pushed me to my limit. My day had started out poorly, and by the end of second period she had me crushed.

At my school, we used a math curriculum that required us to do problems for homework, and present them as groups the next day. I was in a group with Cheri, who that fine day decided to complain about how I don't let anyone help with anything and express to me how much of a jerk I am. Now, I know that this doesn't sound like anything, but the worst weeks of my life had just come before this, and were yet to come right after, and it cut me deeper than anything ever had before, because it had been so long since I had let someone in that far and been cut so deep. It was that day that I realized my mistake: I was a shadow, trying too hard to be a flame. The problem is, fires can be put out; they are physical, breathing, burning forces that have too many weaknesses. But shadows never go away. Shadows are cast in the light and grow in the darkness. Shadows don't get hurt. Fires burn out, shadows only grow. And when the fires die, the shadows will remain. Darkness should never try to burn; it will only burn out and take the oxygen from the other fires. I am a shadow, and I will never burn again.