Heresy from a Heretic

A long time ago, I had this weird idea for all the stories that I'd written before - that they were in an alternate reality, trapped with in the computer. They were about as aware of us on Earth as we are of the deities we worship to. The adventure was one of flight and fancy, and dealt a lot with believing in things you could never prove were real, very akin to how I view religion. I'd always been fascinated with religion, never feeling I fully believed a set of words someone else penned and never going to a service apart from weddings and funerals, and the occasional accidental invitation with friends. I never felt I belonged, the heretic in sheep's clothing. 

Sure, I could follow along with any "be a good soul" concepts - the ones that transcend one religion and bleed into many. But the roots, the stories that were spun are the parts I couldn't figure out. 

The song "One Tin Soldier" was something we'd listen to quite a bit at home. Go ahead and hate your neighbours, go ahead and cheat a friend. Do it in the name of Heaven, you can justify it in the end. 

They were talking about how people claimed to be doing things in the name of their gods, and therefore felt justified in all the pain and suffering they caused. Like the terrorists we've see splattered across the news for years, fighting full wars in the name of their beliefs. Just get along, peace on earth - it's what they were all meant to be. A person does not need to martyr themselves for me, I should never need to expect that of someone else, I should be accountable for my actions and hold others accountable for theirs. 

But despite never growing up with belief systems engrained into my house, I started to build my own, one that fit into what I could accept as true. I'm based in science, logic, and the observable, calculable world. I know that we're not at the point yet where things can be explained fully. And sometimes I don't want things to be explained fully - sometimes I'm content in thinking that the odds, so disproportionally minimal, could only manifest from something I'll never begin to comprehend. Science is, after all, magic tied in pretty bows for people to understand, according to Julie Kagawa, author. 

So in short, am I religious? No, but yes. I won't do anything in the name of a god or a deity if it defies my core beliefs. Be a good soul, make sure that whatever I do, I can live with in the future and look back, knowing I made a decent decision. 

I'm just a sentence, it's somewhat of a metaphor for how small, how insignificant I can be, compared to the thousands of thousands of tomes in existence and those that are still to be written. I get to choose what my sentence says, whether it be inherently insignificant or something that can change the course of the world. I get to choose whether it can do good things or bad, or nothing at all. I have the ability to be anything with my sentence, but I don't have a lot of time. 

Darkness Lurks

Hey Everyone! It's been a long while since I wrote anything, but that's because I haven't really thought of what to write.

I thought I was better; my life is the present, not the past. The past is just something I lived through, a series of events making me ME. I was fooling myself, but to what extent I was never sure. My personality was altered, sure. My views on life were a little different, but whose wouldn't be?

I'm not sure why this term, in my final year of university, that I really started to show symptoms of my past again, but it was here and now, nine years after my external torment ended.

Things that may have caused it: (1) being given an executive position in a club and then being excluded from meetings and decisions, never being asked to help with anything, etc. (2) getting a part-time job at a cafe and then being fired for being too slow, but nothing else. (3) being part of a group of four very intelligent, yet stubborn, people for lab work. (4) getting yelled at for not pulling my weight as a volunteer even though the other person always refused my help when I asked. (5) not getting the high marks even though I wasn't doing much this term.

I've always had a belief that people shouldn't see me crying, that it shows my weakness. It wasn't a good thing to show weakness as a child because that's what the bullies liked to see. I used to keep my tears in until I could find a corner to cry in. I still try to, more out of habit and not wanting to ruin the atmosphere of the room than anything else.

My boyfriend doesn't like it when I cry, he doesn't like it when I'm sad and he's honestly the best person I could have ever hoped to spend my life with. He tries to find me when I disappear, and when he can tell I'm sad, he lets me cry it out and helps me forget about the pain so I can keep going.

I got a really bad mark on a midterm, worse than most of the rest of the class, and I started to call myself stupid, useless, worthless. I yelled at my boyfriend for no real reason and then ran off, hoping to make it back home so I could cry my eyes out. I had approximately a twenty-minute walk, at the end of which I concluded that it would have been better for everyone if I was never born, that I made everyone's lives miserable and it would be a favour to everyone that I just vanish. My boyfriend made it back to my house before I did and was waiting for me. He gave me a giant hug and then cried with me, partially because he thought he was part of the reason I was feeling like that.

This was only one of the many times this summer that ended with me in tears. Any time I was around the clubs I was on the exec team for, I'd end up crying because of how excluded I felt, how useless I knew myself to be. Whenever I was in the room and people weren't actively interacting with me, I felt ignored. If people said anything less than perfectly positive, it was negative.

It got to the point where I couldn't get out of bed anymore. If I did manage my way, the world was just grey, like a miasma was floating around me similar to Olaf's snow cloud. I wouldn't look in the mirror while getting ready so that I wouldn't see myself; I knew it wouldn't be good. I didn't see happy, and I was envious of those who were. I couldn't laugh and everything I did or looked at made me either feel empty or like I needed to cry.

I'm not one to be suicidal. My peace with that was made when I was thirteen years old; when I considered it and all of the pandemonium that would follow. But I knew enough about mental health to know that I needed help before this could get worse before it took over my life.

It's not as easy to stop yourself as it is to stop other people from saying the bad thoughts we all get from time to time.

I guess the thing I'm trying to say is this: the last demon you'll have to fight, the last darkness you'll have to brave, is yourself. It's the shadows that are in your head, whispering dark things.

I Can Trust in _________

When we are young, we are taught to turn to parents, teachers, and any other figures of authority. But what if they're the ones we must fight, or if they're part of the problem? We can't turn to them, because our lives will only get worse. Or if it won't get worse, it definitely won't get any better.

Something similar to that happened to me. My main teachers of fifth, seventh and eighth grades were  bullies, in every sense of the word. They singled me out with their power, had me feel stupid at every chance they got, and any time there was blatant bullying going on from the students, they would fluff it off and say that it was normal kid stuff.

Two of them singled me out for a reason I couldn't control: my heritage. I can not change the blood flowing in my veins any more than anyone else can. They constantly said that Germans were bad people when we were learning about the Second World War, and I was the only German in the school. They said it enough times that I began to believe that I was a wretched individual for ever being born, despite the fact that I'm a pacifist, that I don't like to hurt anyone, and it takes a fair bit to provoke me.

My fifth grade teacher thought of me as insubordinate and needed to ensure that she was the teacher, that she was the boss over me. She did this by pulling me out of the room and telling me as such for silly little things - not bringing my project out to be tested when it was broken in the duration of its stay in the classroom, forgetting a homework sheet and asking for another copy so I could get the answers, and refusing to hand in an essay explaining why it was a good thing laws were broken in wartime Germany.

These things were ridiculous and she needed to assert her power so that she felt important, not because it was necessary.

Because of her, I am still scarred, and I doubt it will ever go away. My mom pulled me out of school for a year and a half because of that woman. By the time she got me out, I refused to sleep some nights because of the nightmares I would constantly get when I closed my eyes. I refused to make any more friends, because she'd target them too, for being kind to me. And I refused to try to learn because I thought there was no hope in this world that I could be a scientist or a writer or anything else.

For a full month after I began homeschooling, I refused to leave my room until 4pm due to worry that I would be sent back to school. My mom wouldn't do that to me, but that's just how fear works.

I returned in seventh grade.

In the time I was home, my mom spent more time trying to fix the mess in my head than she did teaching me what disciplines I was to know about or how people would treat me in the future. The only reason I went back was because my dad didn't like having me around the house so much, he said I needed to grow up and deal with my own problems.

The teacher in seventh grade wasn't a horrible lady, she just inadvertently did things to make my situation worse when she was trying to help. Because there was no record of my work, she stuck me in a remedial English help program, making me feel like I belonged there, with the people that couldn't pick up a novel and understand it. When she noticed I was having trouble making friends with the barbarians of my classroom, she let me eat lunch in the other class, which no other students were allowed to do, singling me out. And she was oblivious to the bullying, and I didn't feel trust enough to tell her. I really didn't trust anyone enough to say a word.

Eight grade was almost as bad as fifth, but this time I didn't even have people my own age I could talk to. And I kept as much of it as possible from my mom so that she and my dad wouldn't fight. The teacher reminded me so much of the woman in fifth grade. One day, she was showing a video based on Anne Frank. Towards the end of the period, about fifteen minutes from lunch break, I tried excusing myself to the washroom, not because I needed to use the facilities. I needed to calm down and didn't want people to see me cry. She didn't understand the urgency and refused to let me out, saying that I could wait like the other students.

Fifteen minutes later, I bolted to the washroom and curled into a corner, crying. One of my classmates found me, and she said that I was rocking back and forth. That I was whispering "It's happening again." No one could get me out of there for two hours, when I sobered up so that my mom wouldn't notice by the time I got home.

That was the start. Other things, like when I broke my ankle again and couldn't carry my own stuff around and her having the gall to say that I didn't understand disability, having me read a book for English study that I couldn't get past the first page because of the gruesomeness, forcing me to write apology homework when I was out sick the day my class misbehaved for a supply teacher. And siding with the students that were bullying me.

Any time I told my mom, my parents fought. My father was always one to believe in the Principle of Parsimony: The simplest explanation, the one with the fewest assumptions, must be the right explanation. Which meant that to him, the problem wasn't with the teachers or the other students, it was with me - I must have been doing something.

My mom wanted to give me the benefit of the doubt. And if she hadn't, if she didn't start picking me up for lunch every day, driving me to and from school, letting me take days off of school for mental health and getting to stay in bed with popcorn and movies, helping me finish my overdue homework because I spent the entire night in the hospital for another ankle break, telling me it was going to be alright someday... I would have done something irreversible.

So... I really don't believe in trusting people for the sake that someone above says I can. People need to earn their trust - be they bigger or smaller. What do you do when you can't trust anyone around you? That's what Bus People are for. That's what perseverance is for. Never give up, never let them show that you've been hurt, never let them win by having the last laugh. It really is the best way out, getting through as quickly as possible.

 I hope by reading these posts that you're finding consolation. There are more people in this world that understand what you're going through than you think there might be.

Revenge

You may be tempted to set someone's house on fire or send them nasty letters threatening to expose any secret you know of your tormentors. But don't do that, it fills your mouth with a bitter aftertaste if you so much as try. If you didn't start out as a bad person, don't let some wretched words or actions of a weaker minded individual change that of you. The thing they want most is to destroy you, your happiness and your future so that you're the weaker one and so they can stand on top of you. They want to transmogrify every part of your life and watch as you cause yourself to fail so they can laugh more.

Please, I implore you with all of my will, don't let that happen.

You can't forget, and no matter how much you may want to, the scars, both physical and emotional, will still be with you through your lives, but don't let them stop you. Scars are better than tattoos for stories, because they are ultimately personal. And it's potent, that energy, if you can direct it towards the right way.

Succeeding is probably the best way to win. If they called you ugly, strut down the runway. Stupid or a retard? A university degree might fix it. Can't write? Publish a book and dedicate it appropriately. Besides success, if you want to be the winner, if they accuse you of anything, true or not, it's best to diffuse the situation.

"You're a slut." = "You think so? So what if I am?"
"You're gay." = "I'm glad. That's the best thing you could have said to me." (This makes more sense when you realize that the word gay used to mean happy or blissful.)
"You're such a fag." = "No, I don't feel like a cigarette. But maybe I'm mistaken."
"You're easy." = "Me easy? No, that would be the (insert subject here) test we just had."

Many of the words said above were said to me. I wasn't brave enough to realize I had as much ability to use my mouth as anyone else. Instead I just moused into a hole and tried to pretend like I didn't exist. My mom didn't know about my situation at the time, but when it was over, she told me not to fight with my fists but with my mind.

If I'm such a horrendous writer, why do I still choose to write? Because no matter what my enemies said to me, I won't stop doing what I liked all along. I chose to evolve so they had little ability to say such things about me any longer, but also so that I might help others stand if they so need a hand.

My dedication, if I ever publish a novel, will be "To all the teachers who never believed in me, Thank you."

New Year's Day

Happy New Year!

I'm not crazy, nor have I forgotten when exactly the new calendar year begins. Every day can be a new year, a time to make changes and to act on them. Today is a new year from 365.242199 days ago.

To me, it doesn't matter if I make stark changes to my life now or on January 1st, but if your life is abysmal at best, if people are putting you down and you're tired of it, why wait? Today is a new day, this year is a new year, and it's the time to take charge of your life the way you want it to be.

Without adding the random New Year's Days I've mentioned above, I celebrate 3 day of the year that are commonly classified as New Year's markers. January 1st, the Julian calendar marker, is the simplest one. It's the common one that people make resolution for and celebrate globally. Lunar New Year is another one, and that can range anywhere from January to March. And then the least common of them all: October 31st.

I started the October 31st celebration when I began doing NaNoWriMo, and I subsequently made it a time of year to try new things (safe, legal, etc.) that I would usually veer away from out of fear. I had a lot of fears, many of them irrational, due to my days being bullied, but now I have friends and I've set a time to face those fears. I aspire to be as fearless as possible, and to let my life be as joyous as I let it.

So I make changes whenever I feel the time is right, be it on a day that others set as a changing marker, or it on a day that I just look up to the sky and realize it's time for something to move. It works better for me, because then I don't have to wait to tell a person I don't need them talking to me poorly anymore. I don't want to wait, because life is short, and we are meant to enjoy as much of it as we can get.

Make every day a new day, one possible of changes. And happy new year, to a year where things change so that you get to smile in the sunshine too.

The Bus People

It was a strange happenstance today that the bus was late. There were plenty of people waiting, and my headphones were well placed over my ears. I'd been moving around to breathe, as I'm asthmatic and can't have any smoke coming my way.

A light tap on my shoulder caused me to slip the music to my neck and turn. There was a girl there, and she had a bag with Tim Horton's cookies. She offered me one, and although I wasn't afraid of the physical safety of the cookie, I declined because I try to lead a vegan lifestyle.

We got to talking because of my choice in diet and I learned through this course of speaking that she was a person who suffered from a lack of self esteem and depression.

I shared with her my stories, how bad everything got for me, and how I got out of it, at least in part. I told her that sometimes it's hard to change yourself, but sometimes it's what is needed in order to be happier.

Sometimes, the parts of your life that cause sadness are the biggest parts - your friends, your family, your role models. And then when you can't talk to any of them, you need a bus person. Or the bar person. Sometimes you need to talk to someone who doesn't know you in the same capacity as the ones you hide in plain view from. When I talked to her, she smiled and said that to me, that she felt she could talk to me because there was little harm I could do in her life, little gossip I could spread. And that I was a good person.

The bus people - if you feel safe to talk to them, and you've got the time and something to get out of your head, DO IT.

The hardest part is saying hello, but it may be one of the best moments of your day, and you may make someone else's day by talking to them too. There is a great terror that the strangers on the street won't accept you because your closest people don't, but they don't know you, and sometimes that's the beautiful part.

If you want to talk, or anything else, comment below.

Waiting for the Sun

There's a famous saying that goes as such: "Life's not about waiting for the sun to come out, it's about learning to dance in the rain."

I'm not saying that you should be happy where you are right now. I don't know your situations. But look for the small bits of happiness. Look for the people that are willing to give you hugs and the cute ducklings that just swam past your feet. Look for whatever makes you feel good.

If you need to punch something, go to a gym and meet a punching bag. Seriously, they do help release your angers and frustrations.

If you need to cry, showers are great places, but don't forget about family, friends, pets, stuffed animals, movie theatres (especially sappy movies), and many more places. 

The one thing I don't suggest is to hide away.

You have an army willing to support you, so don't lie to them and say that everything is fine when it's not. How will people know that you need help if you don't say it?

I know it takes a lot of strength, a lot of courage, a gallon of humility, and a boat load of trust to ask for help. I really do. Because when my life wasn't sunshine, I lied to everyone that wanted to help me and then cried myself to sleep every night.

I didn't want to seem like I couldn't handle it. Like I wasn't perfect, or that I was the problem.

But I wasn't really the problem. And neither are you. So don't think anything else, no matter who says otherwise. Seriously, if they've got anything but love for you and you've done nothing to them that you couldn't undo, it's not you.

Hearts, hugs, and kisses!

Song of the Day: Mother Mother - Monkey Tree

Congratulations USA

So this isn't a post of inspiration or anything, I just wanted to wish my country's southern neighbour my congratulations.

I'm so happy that the USA has joined Canada in legalized equal marriage :) it lets me know that the world is heading in the right direction.

Song of the Day: Jessie J. - Price Tag

Contingency (Rant/Advise)

You can plan every second of your life, pencil in every detail that you want to make certain happen. Your entire life can be laid out such that nothing is a surprise. Only… it won't happen. You can aspire towards that big church wedding when you're five, imagine getting ready with five blonde best friends giggling about the cute groomsmen. But… what about the words "life happens" – do they hold no substance to these plans? And there's the equally important "shit happens", describing a lot

Yep. Believe it.

more of the life that I've experienced than I'd care to have ongoing. But it's true, shit happens, and you have to deal with it.

You basically have only a select few options. Option one: wallow in sadness that your perfectly designed future is in shambles, let the world win while you're at it. Option two: keep going at a dream that won't come true, hold on to a dream that barely exists by the last threads on this planet, and then head to option one after you realize it's fruitless to keep going. Or option three: have a contingency plan, and if you don't already have one that can work around or through whatever shit life gave you, make one up.

Option three, is, in my opinion, is the only feasible option for survival. And it's the best one to tell the world to stop screwing with your life. The world won't stop messing around with life as a general thing, but at least you won't let it win over yours. If the world consists of bullying people, then you basically are telling those people "up yours, I don't need or want this, and I can do better". If life is an accident that renders you unable to use your right hand and you're an artist, you figure out how to paint with your left, or you learn how to express yourself another way.

If you desperately love something, I'm not saying to forget about it if you've for some reason lost your talent for it because of an unexpected event. There are choices we can make, but not all of those options are presented pointblank. Many of them, more than are presented, are things you have to find out for yourself. And before you say you can't, try it. Try it for long enough that you know with 100% certainty that it will not work.

Or run and hide.

I don't really care what you do, because ultimately this is your life, not mine. Take my words for what they are, advice from a stranger. I am trying to help, but if I'm pushing you, you don't have to keep reading or do what I say.

But remember: it is your life. Crap may be piled a mile high on it, but as that old saying goes, when life gives you lemons, find something to do with them. Make lemonade if you have sugar. Or use them to clean up the rest of the mess that's already in your wake. Or just eat them whole. It is your life, take control of it. Own up to your short comings and to your mistakes. Be happy with what you've got, because no matter who you are, there are many small miracles that require nothing but a positive attitude to change your outlook around. Don't hide under boastings and trimmings, things that don't really matter in the end.

The real question is, in the end, what matters?

If you think sticking to a ruined plan will make you happy, good luck. I'm not saying that it won't work, but sometimes the planned ending is not the optimal. Sometimes it's the unexpected journey, the unexpected end that makes it the mile.

So dance in the rain, walk until you're lost and then stop and smell the salty air, experience the world for what it is. It's a mess. And despite how you may not want to admit it, you're probably not far off of that either. So embrace it.

Be a mess and wear a smile.


Reposted from here, my Fictionpress account. 

"Happy"?

We all strive for this thing called happiness that seems, at times, nearly impossible to obtain and at others unimaginable to live without. Happiness is elusive to the downtrodden. But that's only because we're the ones preventing it from visiting.

Why would we prevent ourselves from being happy?

Some of us, myself once included, might think we're not deserving of being happy. We believe that we're making the world worse off with us being around, and as such deserve to be depressed whilst we bring gloom to others. The only thing that kept this sort of thought from taking my presence from this planet was knowing that my death would bring more sorrow, more anger and pity to the few people that believed in me.

In a sense, I've tried to be the least consequential to the world as I possibly can. Oozing depression wasn't something I ever wanted to do, to see the disdain on their faces was something I could hardly stand. But it works both ways, I've come to realize. If, instead of with sorrow, I can see the world and smile. My smiles can bring others smiles of happiness, not out of triumph over some lowly soul, which was how the smiles I used to bring were like.

So perhaps I'm not as inconsequential as I'd wished, but at least what I bring now is more happiness most days. I still have days of calamity, but they are fewer than used to be.

But what of other people, ones that don't think they deserve their torment? What keeps them from happiness?

Thinking that what they've done or where they are now is too far lost, to where the warmth of the sunlight and the magical beauty of the world cannot reach is more so their dilemma. I don't know how to help you as much as the latter group, and I'm sorry that it's such. But I will say that talking it out, writing or venting your emotions in some way is one of the best things you can do. No matter what you've done, save for being someone that has killed a thousand people for no apparent reason, you deserve goodness in your life too.

Some things, no matter how you find yourself, to keep spirits up, is to listen to music. I won't say necessarily that it must be cheery music, because at times that can make us angrier or more upset. But music in general has a way of altering how we see the world, even if it's in the minutest of ways. Find ways to make yourself feel better about who you are. I'll list below some of the things I do in order to face the world.

• Smile even when there's nothing particular to smile at - you'll just naturally start to smile if you do this. Just don't do it when you're not in a situation where smiling is a bad idea (e.g. being questioned by the police for suspected murder)
• Stop looking in mirrors every two minutes - if you have body image issues, this will really help. It's fine if you look before you leave the restroom to make sure everything's tucked away where it should be, but don't go to extremes. If you look in the mirror too much, you'll see what no one else will ever even notice about you unless they're trying intentionally to find something wrong with you. 
• Even if it's "weird", dance in the rain - I mean to say, do whatever you feel like doing (legally/ethically good, I mean) even if no one is planning on joining in on your adventure. It's your life that you're living. You're not living theirs. What you do is for YOU to make YOU happy. And FYI, weird is just another way of saying "not been done before, or done often". Weird isn't bad.
• Believe in what you think is right. Find your own morals to live by, and they may be the same as someone else's morals, but they may also differ. Someone may say that sex before marriage is sinful and you may think "as long as there's no risk of communicable disease, what's the big deal". To each their own, but live by what morals you set for yourself - it'll really help in the long run.

• Fun Fact: My immediate family is Christian Nominally Agnostic. We celebrate Christmas and Easter and such, but don't go to church or read/quote the bible. We've been called Heathens before, so spare that, please. My beliefs are slightly different - I'm Pagan of the unknown variety based partially off of Wicca. My moral codes are much the same, but the one big difference I have from my family is that even if someone doesn't ask for help directly, I will still offer it. But only if they seem like they really need the help and are willing to help themselves change the situation they've found themselves in.

I hope you find your happiness. Share below what are some things that make you feel better. :)

Window

Don't let the stormy darkness pull you down - Pete's Dragon

When I started grade 7, I felt as though I was a stranger crashing a party in mid run.

The school I'd left in grade 5 was the one I was returning to, so I wasn't completely the new kid. I still knew a couple of people from my first sentence at the school, and so I thought it wouldn't be too awkward. I tried to keep my reasons for the departure and return quiet; it wasn't something anyone wanted advertised.

I didn't want to be the girl that was too weak to last through a bad teacher's class. I didn't want to be the psychotic classmate or the one that no one could tolerate. I was embarrassed that I wasn't strong enough, smart enough. Wicked enough.

I kept on a mask, pretended that the witch walking those ten year old children down the hall wasn't there. But that pretense also kept me from being a normal kid, from being an interesting one that people were drawn to positively. It was my fear; the bane of my existence was a manifestation of my past catching up with me. And I couldn't help it. Not because I didn't want to, but rather because I was afraid of what would happen if I let my mask fall away.

We, my schoolmates and the teachers and I, became coinciding entities that never knew each another, never got to experience another, though knew of the other's existence.

My fear was a glass ceiling, and one I formed. People always said that victims of bullying and abuse are faultless, that there is nothing they're doing to deserve it. I don't believe that. Not that the victims are bad people, but it might be the way they talk, the sound of their voice, the things they find interesting; it could be anything. We are not faultless as victims, but that doesn't mean we should change what our fault is or be anything but who we are. It takes two for a fight, for a conflict. The victim, possibly unbeknownst why, is one of those two.

Aspirations

If you've actually read my #DearMe and my creator's introduction page, then this won't be a surprise for you. My two greatest aspirations are to be a teacher and a novelist/writer. Why?
Novelist:

I was a nasty little girl that hated to read when I was five all the way until I was about twelve. The two books that got me back into reading were Twilight and Looking for Alaska. They were both recommended to me by a girl, whose relations to me would take longer to type than I'd want to in this post, and I had to say I liked Looking for Alaska far better. From there, I read mostly fantasy, delving into Terry Pratchett novels and world where anything could and often did happen. 

But why was I so attracted to fantasy? 

My elementary school ranged from kindergarten to grade 8, and high school was grades 9-12. I had a rocky start to this school, being that my entry was in grade 7, not at birth or a young age like the rest of the students. Because I was an outsider I didn't know my classmates well... and I had a home room teacher with a strange vendetta against my heritage and therefore me. I felt alone. Even with the people I thought and considered as friends, everything was so distant and I was always running to catch up. 

In books, especially fantasy books, every word I read brought back drops of life. This was like replenishing a bone dry bucket with misty rain. It can work, but it can take an eternity. But it's still better to do it this way than to not do it at all.

When I read about the characters and their worlds, I could imagine walking straight into the book, traveling to a different dimension and such. I was given the opportunity to escape the world that was killing me. And for this reason, I love books, and I always will. I love to read them, and I found that in writing them, the same feelings were produced. I could leave the world that was given to me and make one I liked better, one suited for me.

I was ashamed when I first wrote a scene onto paper that I crumpled it up and threw it into the bottom of my knapsack. My mom had taken to rummaging through my bag to see if I had homework and happened across it. She pressed me, asking if it was in fact homework, and I told her it was nothing and threw it into the recycling. 

She must have picked that paper out and kept it, because when I got to the end of grade 8, when I was about to graduate, I found it, flattened as well as it could be, on my desk with a chocolate on top. 

I want to be a novelist so I can write stories that help other girls and boys that are going through the same things I was going through at that age. I want to be another option for escape and I want to be an inspiration, to tell them that there's hope and that there's always a way out.

Teacher:

They always teach children that they can go to their educators, the teachers, for help and solace. If you were having trouble at home, you were supposed to go to the teacher. If you were being bullied, you went. So why did I not?

I can count exactly how many wretched teachers I've had between grades 2 and 8. To also note, for part of grade 5 and all of grade 6 I was home schooled. The number is 7, though some of those teachers are worse than others. The notably worst three teachers were my grades 4, 5, and 8 teachers. Worst of all of them is my 5th grade teacher - the reason I was pulled out of classes and home schooled for two years. 

Five out of seven of these bad teachers could just be classified as not nice people (I'm refraining from swear words here). My 5th grade teacher was able to, within two months, build me my own personal purgatory. I remember three specific occurrences that caused my anxiety to be overwhelming. Once was when I'd lost a handout and asked for another copy, another was when my project broke when we were supposed to test them, and the third was when I was told by my mom to not hand in an assignment out of family and personal ethics and beliefs. This woman, for each of these occurrences, pulled me into the hallway and yelled out "Who's the teacher? WHO'S THE BOSS?!". I remember those words so clearly, as she shook her finger at my face, her bleached blonde curly hair looking more and more like a ferocious lion about to attack. 

I became so scared that my brother would see me crying at recess, trying to collect myself. He'd tell me to go and call home, to get my mom to come in. When I refused, he did it for me; he was always the one to look out for me. 

By the time I was allowed to be home schooled, I was having nightmares that this woman was out to kill me, that I was a fly she was trying to swat. For the first month of my home schooling, I refused to leave my bedroom during the normal school hours, afraid my mom would take me back to that wretched woman.

As an added note, I am partially German. The assignment my parents told me to not hand in was an essay on why Nazi Germany was bad. I do not have a problem with saying that what happened during the was was wrong. But the Nazis were not the only ones at fault, and I was always raised that way. The woman also always kept saying "the Germans" instead of "the Nazis", making it sound as though the blood flowing through my veins made me as much a killer as Hitler himself. 

In grade 8, I had a teacher similar to grade 5, only I was also being cyber and mentally/emotionally bullied by my grademates. This was when Facebook was becoming popular. My mom was still at my side, but by this time, because I was so bothersome, my dad had left me, saying that it was me that was the problem and not the teachers.

I want to be a teacher so that I can be there for the kids. I was driven to my wits end, possibly even past that, and I don't want for another kid to suffer the way I did if I can help it. 

I want to help others. That's all. To save them from the same hell I endured.