40 reasons why writing saved my life.

1. When I was seven years old, I wanted to be a mermaid. My mom told me that they didn't exist,
That I had to start telling fantasy from reality before fantasy destroyed me so
2. I wrote about being a mermaid.
3. When I was thirteen, I wanted to be anything that wasn't this so I told my therapist about how I used to want to be a mermaid and she asked me what changed so I wrote about how
4. I did.
5. When I was in sixth grade, my English teacher read a poem to our class. It was Emily dickinson's "I held a jewel in my fingers." I started crying halfway through it, and I had to disguise my tears as coughs. Later we were asked to write about what the poem made us feel so I
6. Wrote about how my parent's divorce was like a jewel slipped through my fingers and how I blamed myself for it and how if I had just been a better kid and not asked for as much and made conversation at the dinner table to ease the silent tension between my mom and dad maybe things would be different and how sometimes at night I look at a picture of us together when we were a family and then I tore up the paper and threw it into the trash bin, but not before my English teacher read it and told me I would be okay.
7. I'm still not okay.
8. So I write about it.
9. I have up days and I have down days so
9. On my up days I write about the color of her eyes and
9. On my down days I write about how I'm forgetting the color of her eyes and
10. Sometimes at 2 am I can't feel anything so
11. I pull out a pencil instead of a blade and I scratch bitter truths into paper instead of bitter marks into my skin and
12. I won a contest for writing an essay that held happiness and pretty much just contained lies so I
13. Realized that most people like you better when you're a lie and
14. I don't mean that in the way that you don't tell the truth I just mean it in the way that they'd rather see a forced smile than you biting your lip in science class and
15. Sometimes when I had my anxiety attacks I would write poetry about how I should stop biting my lip in science class before someone noticed because
16. They don't care they're just curious but you can spin yourself a world where they all care but not too much because
17. Caring too much leads to disappointment (I learned that from the two years of clinical depression my dad went through after the divorce) so
18. Instead of telling her "I love you" I'll just write about how I love her.
19. Sometimes when my stepmom tries to talk to me I just take the nearest sheet of paper and write "I am pretending to write something down" a hundred times so that I don't have to hear her lecture me about who I am and sometimes I
20. Write about how I wish she wouldn't lecture me about who I am and
21. She calls our next door neighbor a drunk and a useless druggie when really I've listened to him, and
21. He tells the best stories when he's high and
21. He tells the moon all his worries in a drunken haze and then
22. He asks me for a cigarette but I don't have one so I ask him for a cigarette but he asks why a pretty girl like me would want to smoke so I say the truth and just tell him that I'm sad and then he tells me that we're all a little sad and then
25. My stepmom calls me back inside so I wave him goodbye but he's still talking to the moon and so I go to my bedroom and write down all his secrets that he told the moon in case he wants to tell them to the stars tomorrow night and then I go downstairs and pour myself a glass of coke and then I remember the Emily Dickinson poem and pour a little vodka in there too and then I
28. Write about how the vodka makes me feel even less than I did before and then I drink so much that I fall asleep with my pen still uncapped and then I wake up with blue ink scribbles all over my arms from the uncapped pen and they look like another language so I try to translate them because I know they hold all the secrets of the universe.
31. When I write, I try to uncover all the secrets of the universe
32. Reading my old journal entries make me think about how much I've changed and while that is a good thing I
33. Write about how it's also a bad thing because sometimes when I look in the mirror I don't even recognize myself.
34. When I was 6 years old, they asked me to write what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said a mermaid.
35. When I was 7 years old, they asked me to write what I wanted to be when I grew up so I said a mermaid again. This was the year my mom told me to pick a more realistic goal so
36. When they asked me what I wanted to be when I was 8 years old, I said a n actress but my mom still said that wasn't realistic so
37. When I was 9, I said I wanted to be a waitress but then
38. When I was 10, the girl next to me asked me why in the world I would want to be a waitress so I said I wanted to be a lawyer but
38. I didn't really want to be a lawyer so I wrote about it and
38. I wish I could take it back when I said I wanted to be a lawyer but my teacher had already read it and smiled at me and said I had a good head on my shoulders but my dad always told me I had my head in the clouds and I thought why would I want it in the same place as everyone else when it could be flying with the birds and then
39. When I was 11 and 12 and they asked me what I wanted to be I answered "not a lawyer" and
40. When I was 13, they asked me what I wanted to be and I said "a mermaid."