The Way We Feel

Chapter 1

October 25, 2016

  Homecoming is in a day and I'm going with jack, a cute boy who asked me last minute and I said yes so that I didn't look pathetic, I don't want people to know how hung up over my ex I am, its been almost exactly a year a since we started dating and about nine months a since he broke it off with me. I shouldn't still care about him..  But I do and I cant help it, he made me happy. These days I hate getting close to people, regretting sharing too much, always scared of caring to much, doing to much and feeling too much. Damnit Ash you've gotta stop thinking about this... I walk through the front doors of my big school, and immediately see my best friend standing down the hallway talking to a girl in our year, a pretty blond girl. I walk over to them and say hi I smile at the blond and my best friend, jamie. She introduces her. Her name is Lexi and she has just moved here from Texas. She has a slight accent and a nice personality and Jamie likes her so I Can't help but like her too.

  In Englih class our teacher Mr. Peterson has us writing about a time in our lives when we faced a hardship that has helped is grow. I start writing about when my grandma died, I was 5, almost 6 and she had been diagnosed with cancer  4 months earlier and it was too far along to do much about it, she didnt want to go through chemo so we knew she was going to end up passing away..

I start to write about it,
My grandma died when I was 5. Its the hardest thing I have ever had to go through and at such a young age I still understood what was happening, the morning she died my mom said she knew it would happen she could feel it in the house, the way her mama smiled at her that morning, she says my grandma was asking for me. That she said she wanted to see her little girl, My mother came and got me and brought me down the stairs, we had been staying with her to help take care of her, I ran down the stairs and saw my gramma laying on the couch I walked to her and climbed on the couch next to her. She looked at me with her kind eyes and handed me a peice of Paper, I took it and asked my mom to help me read it, she put on her glasses and read it to me.

Dear tessie,

  You have been accepted to take ballet lessons with us this year! We look forward to meeting you and helping you achieve your dreams.

-kathryn Jorgensen.

I remember How it felt when my moms words sank in, I had wanted to take dance lessons for the past year, not just bcus it was cool or one of those phases kids go through but because it was beautiful, expressing yourself through movement, you can get so much more emotion into dance then you could ever express through words.

...I look at my grandma and start squeeling, with happiness my grandma gives me a smile a d pulls me into a hug. "I promised I would pay for dance lessons"  she whispers to me and I start loughing, Im just so happy. What I didnt realize was Thats the last present she will ever be able to give me, she wont get to give me anymore birthday presents or see me dance in a recital, wont get to see me go to school or put up the messy art projects I bring home from kindergarten. Later that night my family showed up from mt. Vernon and everywhere in between, My mom had called them bcus she knew this was the day gramma would leave us. I hadn't left her side all day I had curled up next to her and watched disny channel and are my cherial, the only time I was allowed to eat on the couch. Once the family started showing up gramma seemed like the life was returning to her but it didnt last long, she asked me to sing to her, so I sang her the lullaby she always sang to me, when her hand went cold in my arms, I asked my mom if she could hear me in heaven and she said she could so I kept singing to her until reality set in and I started crying my eyes out, i realized she would never get to see me do anything else with my life, graduate, get married go to kindergarten or anything else. I learned that night that nothing is permanent and anything can happen, That's the hardship that made me who I am today.
The reason I love every moment as though its my last. Because at any moment you may have to leave the ones you love.

I turned in my paper and left the class when the bell rang the memory of my grandma staying with me through the rest of the day.

   After school, I decide to ride home with my friend Angela who is a year ahead of me. I prefer walking but it started raining around lunchtime and hasn't let up seince. On the ride home I look out the window at the cold rain rolling down, its all so beautiful. It's a beautiful sadness.

   You know that feeling you get when your chest gets tight and it feels like it
is being sat on. That is the feeling I have right now, like someone is pinning me down. No one is pinning me down, its all in my head... calm down calm down. I just want these panic attacks to go away... my heart starts beating faster and faster and u can't  breath... i need to take deep breaths.