Ladybug

Dear Emily

Dear Emily,

For the past ten years, you’ve defied all odds.  You’ve survived.  When we were nine years old, your doctors told you that you had a year or less to live in your condition.  Now, we’re almost nineteen years old and you’re still here with us.  Since then, you’ve even had unheard of periods of improvement.

You have MLD, Metachromatic Luekodystrophy. It’s fatal.  It eats away at the white matter in your brain, leaving you unable to walk, talk, eat, read or function in basic ways.  I’ve watched you lose these abilities from afar, unable to help and unable to comfort you.

But still, you live on, and you and your family amaze me every single day.  You can’t talk, but they hear you.  You can’t read, so they read to you.  You can’t walk, so they push your wheelchair.  You can’t eat, so they give you a feeding tube and keep you healthy.

Emily, one day, you will die.  I hate saying it, but it’s the sad truth, and it’s a truth we will all have to face one day.  But I don’t want you to worry.  Emily, you’ve lived a truly blessed life.  You have a family who loves you, friends who support you, and a community who will never forget you.  Even once you’re gone, your legacy will live on forever with those who surround you.

Emily, I will never forget you.

Love, Olivia

Flipping a Switch

It feels weird, falling out of love.  Part of it is how you would expect it to be: a painfully slow process that can only be completed with time.

But part of it is like flipping a switch.  One minute, you’re in love, and the next, something isn’t quite the same.  This switch inside you has been on for so long that you almost forgot what it was like for it to be off.  And then suddenly, one day, you aren’t in love like you were the day before.  Your feelings are still there, they just no longer have the intensity that they once had.

So yes, in a way, it’s a process.  The feelings are still there, and maybe a part of me will always be in love with him.  But most of me isn’t.  Just like flipping a switch.

I Hate You.

I hate you for what you did to me.  I hate you for not apologizing, for doing things that I told you not to because you thought it was funny.  Things that hurt and things that annoyed.  I hate you for what you did to us, but mostly I hate you for what you did to her.  What happened to us will heal quickly - it’s already come so far and it’s only been a couple of hours.  But she’s going to need time to recover from this, and it’s so hard for her.  If I was questioning being able to forgive you before, rest assured, I’m positive now.  You will never be forgiven.

Morally Correct

I’m beginning to wonder if I know right from wrong as well as I thought I did.  I know that doing the right thing isn’t always the same as doing the easy thing, but this is a little different.

I know it sounds strange.  When you’re little you learn that telling the truth is right and telling a lie is wrong.  When you get a little older you learn that telling a little lie can sometimes be right, but not always.  You have to use your judgement.  This is when things begin to get a little rocky, but it’s not the worst of it.  You learn later that there are times when some people expect you to break a promise, like if a friend tells you someone is hurting hurt.  But then there are times when promises are sacred.

You get into middle and high school, and you learn that making drama is wrong and not troubling the waters is right.  You learn that standing up for yourself and what you believe in is right, and backing down is wrong.  You learn to try not to care what other people think.

This is where things really start to conflict for me.  What if doing what I believe in is causing drama?  What if the girl I’m friends with is the “wrong” person to be friends with or the boy I want to date has a society-inflicted bubble around him that I’m not supposed to break?  What if everybody says one thing but they say another?  Who do I believe?

On one hand, what seemed like the right thing to me, was to believe him, not be influence by gossip, and do what I want to do, not caring that it’s causing drama and not caring what people are thinking.

And then there’s what I thought was the wrong thing.  To back out.  To give in and believe what everybody tells me, to understand why he is unavailable to me, accept it, and move on.  Less drama, and pretty damn easy, definitely easier than the other option.  So this is the one I picked.  For once in my life, I wanted to take the easy option, whether it was the right option or not.

But since then, I’ve been wondering.  People tell me their proud of me for what I did.  That ending this must’ve been hard, and most girls would have kept it going just because they wanted a prom date.  I started to wonder if maybe I did the right thing after all.  This in turn, made me wonder if other choices I’ve made that I thought were right, things that were hard to do, but seemed to make me a bigger person, were actually bad choices.  Maybe everybody else was right and I was wrong.  Maybe what they did was okay.  Maybe there was no okay options, and they had to pick what seemed best for them.  But then, maybe that’s what I was doing, what seemed best to me.

I still don’t know, and it bothers me.  I don’t know if it’s something I’ll ever figure out, but I’m going to have to continue trying to let these things go if I ever want to figure out what I believe is right and wrong.

She Lives

I look at his page everyday

constantly telling myself that he’s not okay.

I want to fix this, but, well

it isn’t my secret to tell.

So what he did ends up staying quiet

when really, I should be starting a riot.

It takes everything I have not to shout

“He’s a rapist! Get him out, get him out!”

Meanwhile, he walks around free

and only she and I can see.

Sometimes I wonder if he even remembers

the heat of rage, the burning embers.

She lives a prisoner in her mind

with what happened forever underlined.

She lives everyday in fear

with the memory forever bright and clear.

She lives everyday in pretend

hoping no one can tell what happened.

I’ll never be able to make it go away

this kind of thing will always stay.

I’ve never felt a hatred this deep,

it’s with me even when I sleep.

He’ll never pay for that day,

who knows when she will feel okay.

He’ll never pay for what he did,

she was only a little kid.

Why High School Sucks

• I have to wait around for 2 or 3 hours after I’m done with classes before I can actually get home (unless I want to walk two miles.)
• I don’t really get along with anyone in my grade.
• Some days, I only have Chorus classes but I still have to show up.
• Nobody shares my free blocks, so I’m always bored.
• On no day of the week do I start class before 11:10, but I still have to get there at 9:30 because I can’t get another ride.
• People care way too much about things that don’t matter at all.
• High schoolers are mean.
• Middle school don’t understand the concept of basic personal hygiene.
• I have to do work and stuff.
• My friends are all Juniors and can’t relate to my feelings about graduation/college.
• I’m not allowed to fall asleep during class.  Even if it’s really boring.
• The bathrooms are gross, and they never have paper towels

Things I’ve Learned from my Brother

• Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh suck.
• Asperger’s is weird and confusing.
• The Matrix is not worth watching.  Neither is Star Wars.
• Never talk at someone, and don’t tell people things that they don’t care about, even if you care a whole lot.
• Dread locks are a no-no.
• A cat picks you, not the other way around.
• Clean your room occasionally.  This is not the same as putting your things in your sister’s room.
• Always remember to shower more than once a week.
• Clothes need to be washed between wearings.
• There are two sides to every story.
• Don’t eat other people’s food, even if it’s in the fridge and isn’t labeled.
• Lazy summers with friends in the backyard are the best.
• Don’t let people hurt your loved ones.
• Don’t expect respect if you haven’t earned it.