Project Happy

Ivory Week 1

Hi, my name is Ivory Jade Hawthorne. Yup, that's me.

Let me start this little life confession thing, if you will, off by telling you a little bit about why i shut the whole world out and died inside, leaving myself to live half alive.

I guess you could say that i am the result of a wonderful life gone terribly wrong. I wont lie, i had an amazing life. I mean, my parents loved eachother, happily married. My sister and i, despite the occasional fight, got along pretty well. I had friends that i had known since preschool and kindergarten by my side and who supported me and never judged me for who i was. And heck, i guess you could say that i was even a bit popular, always the one everyone wanted to sit by and talk to in class, and who was always invited to sleepovers and mall trips on the weekends with everyone. Wonderful, ain't it?

But all wonderful things have an end. And with that, came the harsh reality of having to grow up faster than most kids. Real fast. Like my childhood had been ripped out of my hands, never to be mine again.

Everything took a turn for the absolute worse in third and fourth grade. My best friend, who was probably the reason i was somewhat popular now that i think of it, found a new 'better' and more popular best friend, and left me for her, leaving me on the side of the road like i was some bag of trash. My popularity just about ended there. My parents started fighting. A lot. But i learned to get used to it and to not say anything about it. My sister and i started fighting a lot in result of all of the stress and tension in the house.

As i slowly saw my life deteriorating before my very eyes, i couldn't help but think of everything one day just falling completely apart, leaving only me and my problems alone it the corner to die alone.

I told myself that i would never love again the day my dad called a 'family meeting' in our living room, only to tell us that he was divorcing my mother. When he said those words, my mom told us that he had never even brought up the subject with her, and that she had no idea. When he said those words, i stormed out of the room running towards my room, and locked myself inside. I fell to my knees, alone in my room, and curled up into a ball on the ground and started crying. I knew that this could happen one day, but i had never actually thought it would happen to me. I told myself i would never love my father again. I would hate him forever. This was his fault, not mine. And someday, somehow, i would see to it that he would pay for what he caused, and i would be the one to inforce it.

My friends started to slowly fall away from me, or was it me from them? I was no longer the popular girl with the even more popular best friend. No more weekend plans, no more fun. Some would lie or back stab me, some would not talk to me in disgust to the unpopular, unimportant being i had become. Other students in school started to laugh and make fun of me because of how stupid, gullable and ignorant i acted. Little did they know that it was all an act.

I had to fake it. I had to fake being happy. It was either act how i felt and be depressed and being a horrible child, or act like nothing was wrong and like i was the happiest person on earth and nothing could bother me. So acting happy it was. And actually, i did a pretty good job there, for about 3 years. Then i turned 14, and decided to live my life the way i wanted, because i didn't care about anything else. And i guess you could say, that's where i'd finally lost it. I began to slowly break into a million pieces, each piece a part of the real me. Becomming more and more numb everyday.

The more and more my father tried to screw with my life, the more and more mad i got at the world. My mother had moved into a temporary place untill we found a house to our liking. And eventhough the court's parenting plan told me where to go and who to live with on what days, and what holidays i could and couldn't spend with my mom, i had had enough of a stupid jury and judge telling me that i had to live with my father for half of my week. And so as my father decided to stay in the same state, town, community, and even church as my mom and i, it became more and more apparent that the things he did, were his way of trying to control our lives. MY life. Despite the right thing to do was to stay along side my younger sister, i had to make a decision. So i did, i walked out on my father, told him i was never coming back ever again, and walked out that door all the way to my mothers house. Screw the parenting plan, if its such a crime, then come and arrest me, at least then i wouldn't have to see my fathers stupid face again.

"Don't bottle things up, you have to talk about it, its not healthy to keep it inside."

I always hated that piece of advice people always tell people, mainly cuz i thought of it as a pile of crap that wasn't true, i mean, look at me. I bottle up everything, yet here i am today to tell the story.

Well, um, ya turns out, that piece of advice is spot on, 100% true. Don't be like me and deny it. Because, it will someday come back and shove you under the water, leaving you there to drown in your past. Trust me, i would know.