*TRIGGER WARNING, please look at the triggers at the bottom of the article ^u^*
Three years is a long time. Time brings changes, some good and others bad. I wish I could say that a day doesn’t go by that I don’t think of you, but I can’t. The world moves on, brings new reasons to be sad or to crack a smile.
Your loss hit me like a bag of bricks to the face. It hurt and shook me for a while, but I healed the best I could. I haven’t mourned you properly yet, I didn’t cry at your viewing because I wasn’t allowed to attend. I cry when I’m driving in the morning sometimes, when I think about how you walked with me to school everyday at seven thirty despite you not needing to be there until noon. I cried one night when I’d spent a little too much time in my head, or sometimes when I just feel so tired that the tears slip out.
I miss you, and it hits me every so often. This week especially. I’ve been exhausted, and my mind hasn’t given me a break. My friend is sick, it’s serious, the pandemic finally got to her. There’s nothing I can do for her but be there through a screen.
I wish I had been there for you. You weren’t sick though, according to what everyone who talked to you in those offices said, the world just wasn’t your friend. I don’t think it’s anyone’s friend.
Bad things happen to good people, why is that?
My friends’ family is going through so much, I know yours did too, I wasn’t allowed to see them directly but I could see the pain through their cracks.
I’ll never see you again, you know. You left us, you choose to leave us. I don’t judge you for it, it just makes things sadder.
I fear that everyone I care about will leave me one day.
Especially now, with this pandemic breaking out throughout the world, and I know people who have been directly affected, and can’t help but worry. Worry that when the world is joking now, it’s not. Worry that this quarantined world will just leave me cracked and ruined. I’m worried that I won’t be good enough for it even though I know I deserve more than I can imagine.
I cry about that, too, sometimes. I find myself crying more and more lately. Not that I tell anyone. I’ve become more outgoing, made new friends. Friends that I care so much about, and that think of me much more than I do. They push me to get what they know I deserve.
Why didn’t I do that with you? I really did think that I was trying, I never stopped asking and listening and drawing, you know.
I didn’t know that she caused so many issues for you. I still don’t know how low she made you feel, all because you loved a girl who refused to say she loved a boy back. I wonder how she feels, knowing she wanted only a female deemed smile, not your magnificent male smile that was identical. How she feels knowing that she caused so much heartache and tears. Knowing that she caused the same boy she loved, to want to be remembered as a girl for her sake.
I wonder how she’s doing now too, I only talked with her once or twice before the day I heard she had boarded a flight to who knows where.
She doesn’t deserve to have any of us wonder where she is now.
I’m getting help.
Help with finding good ways to properly channel my emotions. I’ve made mistakes, more than I’d care to mention. I’ve cheated, lied, and wasted so much time ignoring the fact that I needed help so desperately.
She helps me, let’s me know that I’m getting better, little by little as she waits out the pandemic in the center of its hot zone. How will she act when she reads this, I’m not sure. I’ve been doing better, but this week, especially that day…. It hurts. When she reads this, I want her to know that I’m not going to write back this month, or next month, I don’t think I’ll be able to write back again for a little while. And she will be fine with that. Because she knows that just like with your art, my words will always return.
I miss you, and I vowed to never take what I have for granted. I don’t want what happened to you to happen to another person, even though it’s impossible. It happens everyday, and the world moves on. People before you and people after you that I love, have joined you. The best I can do is try and keep it from happening to the people around me.
I can talk to the grocery store employee with the scars completely covering up her arms.
I can invite the person sitting all alone to have lunch with me and my friends.
I’m trying, is what I guess I’m trying to say. I’m trying to have fun with life. It’s hard but I’m managing.
Some days the pain just hurts, alot. Makes everything suck.
Others I’m happy.
College is nice, I love it.
It’s been 3 years since we lost you, and as much as it hurts it is getting easier.
I will always miss you, you were my friend.
And no one but a few select people will ever know that.
I guess that’s all I can say for now.
(If you are having thoughts of suicide or think someone you love is, don’t hesitate to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. If it’s not safe to call, a chat option is available at www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org. Calls and chats are confidential and free. You are never too young to look for help for yourself or others.)