For any like Seth...

I began this blog with the intention of sharing things I found interesting, learning a bit about myself in a fairly safe environment, and sharing myself with a world I'd basically avoided. In the scope of this I've found I'm often touched by the pain of others, enough so that I've broken into the past and want to share something with anyone who is reading who may feel such pain and misery. This was inspired, in part, by reading the article on Milkboy's today about Seth. It somehow got me to tell a difficult story, full of sentence fragments and probably confused...it's one I probably should not tell. Well, before I wimp out, I'll post it and let the chips fall. To any who are thinking of ending their life. Don't. Please, just don't. I was born the youngest of two, to the distinct displeasure of the other. An older sister who surely would rather have had a puppy. I was the one who followed and pestered and wanted only to be loved, liked, wanted. To simply be wanted. In the years of my youth I never found the way to simply fit in. I was the middle child in the neighborhood, older or younger than the rest. I had no “best friend”, something I truly always wanted. Oh, there was no shortage of kids in my neighborhood, I just always felt a bit out of sync with them. It leaves a hunger in a kid, a wanting. In the course of time and days I found someone who seemed to want to spend time with me, who laughed at my jokes and antics but not at me, and who I found to be so very cool. He was four years older than me, but for a while that was just wonderful in my eyes. His name was Steve. I found that particular snake in Eden’s garden unstoppable, though. Scandal struck our little neighborhood when he was accused of forcing another boy to blow him. I didn’t know there were others who he had forced to do this; thought I was the only one. He laughed about it, and it seemed he had every right to laugh as nothing ever came of it. No one could stop him, it seemed. I was eleven when he caught me alone in the woods and raped me. Looking back, there are times in my life that are just simply grey and brown fog. Blocked out memories, compartmentalized moments. That was one such day. I remember little from it but feeling humiliated. I was embarrassed and just wanted to escape to my bedroom and disappear. It was just before school started, I remember. I was moving on to the Jr. High that year, afraid of all the new things that would come with that but looking forward just the same. It was the year I learned to love reading, reading my first real book “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. It was the year I found gym to be the most interesting and frightening place in the world, filled with kids getting naked for showers. I was pushed into the corner by some of the older kids after gym as one whispered into my ear he’d heard I gave good head and was a good fuck. I was eleven years old when I decided I’d had enough and got my father’s gun. I was too afraid to live anymore, and far too humiliated for it as well, but equally frightened of dying. I knew I’d go to hell. I knew it. And still, I couldn’t go on. With the barrel at my right eye, screaming at the top of my lungs for anyone and no-one to hear, the hammer slammed forward on nothing, and I’d realized I’d peed myself. I put the gun away and went to bed. I told Mom I wasn’t feeling well. I’d realized I was stuck. I was too afraid of living, I was too afraid to die. What the hell was I going to do tomorrow? I’m in my 40’s now. I’ve bumped my head on life a number of times, trying to understand the seemingly uncomprehendable. In many ways I’ve found that I’m still afraid of the what-ifs that live outside the walls I’ve built, but I’ve also found that there is life within these walls. I envy some of the young people I read about who seem to have found the way to embrace life, who have been able to be free and be themselves. I cry with the kids who believe there is no life worth living in their current misery. I’m no model, but dammit Hang On! It get’s better. To all the ones giving up, just please...hang on!