Time for me to be a wee bit emotional

Quick Little Preface: While I’m rereading this it’s kind of me having a mild breakdown (eek) but I promise there’s a happy ending (and me being a little gay)

When I was little, I never really thought I was going to make it to middle school, and that was before covid hit. I was somewhat convinced that something was going to happen to me and I wouldn’t ever see it. It didn’t help that even when I was young I was shockingly aware of death. So every day was almost isolated. At my first school I was almost entirely alone, I had a couple people that I considered friends, but now I can’t even remember their names. At my second school I was able to open up a little bit, but then my best friend’s dad died right before Christmas in 5th grade. The day she left to move to Texas to be with family is still one of the most disappointing days of my life.

Once I did make it to middle school in person, I was elated, but since the pandemic was still present, my fear didn’t go away, it just shifted. I convinced myself I would never make it to high school. I would make one wrong move and face the worst of consequences and I wouldn’t be able to avoid it. It also didn’t help that those were the years my own mental health started to go down the drain like seemingly everyone’s did at the age of 12. But still, I tried to push down this fear of dying young and ignore it until I finally hit 8th grade, and as is the theme, someone in my life died in the hospital, except this time it was my own family. The first time I ever cried at a funeral, and I had been to many funerals by that point.

Soon enough I made it to high school, the task that seemed so insurmountably impossible that I hadn’t even let myself dream of what it’d be like. So for the first in forever, I wasn’t worried about making it to the next stage of life, after high school is college, and college is freedom, and I wanted to be free. I walk through freshman year just content, I finally begin to formulate the perfect friend group, allowing myself to do things for the first time since 4th grade, and finally feeling content when sophomore year starts.

And then, as is the theme, someone dies. This time my 21 year old cousin in a motorcycle accident that closed down a major road.

That contentment I felt slowly begins to die, and I begin worrying if I may die tomorrow while lying in bed at night. I start to worry if I’ll ever make it to college, if I’ll ever see the future and if it’s worth even daring to think about tomorrow much less 2 year from now.

But nonetheless we persist, smile and wave, I’ve made my bed now I must lie in it you know? Learn how to look prepared and alert while meanwhile you’re thinking just a liiiiittle too hard about what could happen with the guy who you go out of your way to walk with in the hallway every day if he didn’t have a girlfriend who was also one of your best friends.

But here we are know, June 29th 2025, I saw my best friend for the first time since the end of school yesterday, and had the most embarrassing cry of my life while she laughed at me. Thought a little bit about the guy who I spent the majority of the time I was with yesterday if he wasn’t “straight” (more on that guy some other time) and letting myself think about what I want to do for college instead of putting it off for later because I’m too scared to think about it.

Moral of the story: the past 8 years have been a trip, but I think it’ll get better if I let it.