Delirious

Long Gone

Yeah, another crappy addition to my collection. Just casually ignore how bad it is lol. 

My fingertips gently brushed past the page, the fragile corners bending slightly at the contact. A tear formed in my eye as I read on, the words bringing a whole cloud of sadness into my mind.

I sniffled, my body threatening to burst into a complete sobbing fit. I could feel my eyes burning, and I blinked in the hope that the sensation would disappear. Just to discover, it wouldn't. Reading this, it felt like I was breathing through a tube, my arms suddenly growing weak at the poorly written words.

I breathed in slowly, regretting ever picking up the small book from that box. I had been cleaning out my art box, and discovered a small black book sitting at the bottom. My journal. Memories had come rushing back at the sight of it, and I had smiled to myself. I had received it in fourth grade, eager to finally have my own journal to write in. With gentle hands, I had picked up that small book.

Naturally, I sat down on my bed and began reading. At the start, I had been laughing at my poor scrawl and dedication to unimportant details. I shook my head in pure laughter at my words, "I'm now a mature 5th grader.".

As if.

But as I read on, the text got heavier, the words holding a deeper meaning. And as I sat in the future, my heart start to crack at the things my ten year old self had written. "We usually have Easter at my grandparents house, but grandpa is a little sick."

If only my ten year old self had known, two years later my Grandpa would die, because of that sickness called cancer. Eventually I came across that entry, "My Grandpa passed away March 30th 2015 at 11: 32."

And that's when the pain started to pierce my heart. The overall mood and tone of the writing dropped, all those happy meaningless stories melting into stories about my grades dropping, me being bullied, me losing yet another person -my friend- to cancer, and me hating myself. By the time I got to the last words in the journal, "That's kinda it. I don't like getting into detail anymore." I knew I had changed from that happy, sweet, innocent girl I was once was.

Maybe it was a rush of realization, or just the overwhelming grief of all the people I had lost, but time seemed to freeze. Everything was kinda in slow motion, as I processed it all. Through the years, I hadn't just lost my grandpa and friend, I had lost myself. I had lost the little girl, who didn't care how she looked, who brushed off physical pain and malicious words like they were nothing. Who ran around on the day before first grade, screaming and laughing happily in excitement for school to start. The girl who was amazed when she saw Captain Jack Sparrow, and made sure to clarify in her writing that it was indeed an actor pretending to be him, but was still utterly starstruck. That little girl with the bright smile, who was constantly laughing.

That used to be me. But that little girl, I realized, is long gone.