I’ve always believed that good things happened to good people. The world kept spinning around and day by day, people carried on with their lives. Thrust into the normality of daily schedules and busy work, we forgot to live. We forgot to love. We forgot to return phone calls, to tell someone how much you loved them, to be honest and real, to care. We live in a world filled with so much hate, but there has to be something more than this thing we call living.

It all happened so fast, but at the same time so slow. Days strung together and longing led to the next morning and the next. I’d always been one of those people who didn’t know how to react in times of despair. My mother said I was just like my dad, and for awhile, I hated that she said that. The thing is I didn’t react. I never did. I died inside. It was like doing a school science experiment and wondering why you couldn’t see anything changing and 10 seconds later, the whole project explodes. I’m still waiting for the explosion part.

I blame it on the broken mirror; all this bad luck. It’s a slap in the face. It’s a wakeup call. 

No one has cancer. Not yet and hopefully not ever. I’ve secretly always wished something bad happened, coming through it and in return having a lifetime of sunshine. Maybe that makes me a bad person for wishing for a misfortune. But Nicholas Sparks’ books are only fictional. There’s never a fairy tale ending.

In the past year, I’ve seen 5 people in the hospital, heard 3 cancer scares, and experienced 2 breakdowns. To be truthful, all I did for a week was question why this happened, why did I deserve this, why now? I was perfectly fine, but my family wasn’t; it felt like I was born immune and I had to watch everyone I loved die from the infection. I felt so hopeless. Still, I continued to be a pain, unable to find the code to being the perfect daughter. I was vulnerable for a sliver of hope that never came.

It wasn’t until I was sobbing, spitting words out of my mouth to my school guidance counselor that I realized I needed help. I needed someone to talk to, but talking to friends and family didn’t help at all. As I sat in the bright, cramped room, I counted on my fingers how many bad things occurred throughout the year:

1. My dad got in a car accident on his way to work and was rushed to the hospital.

2. My mother had a small heart attack.
3. My brother told us about his 3 attempted suicides.
4. My younger cousin was pushed down her school stairs by bullies and lay unconscious.
5. My grandfather was at risk of lung cancer.
6. My aunt was at risk of kidney cancer and my mother wanted to give her one of her kidneys.
7. At 2 AM, we had to rush to my brother’s university to make sure he wouldn’t attempt suicide again.
8. My mother stayed in the hospital for 3 days because she had a nose-bleed that wouldn’t stop. She was checked for cancer that could’ve been tied to the nose bleed.
9. My brother broke his right leg for a 2nd time. He was told that if he didn’t take care of himself, he would get arthritis at the age of 18.
10. My mother’s co-worker, whom she was close friends with, passed away from a heart attack. She never got to say good-bye.
11. My family was falling apart.

I always thought there was something wrong with me because whenever someone else was in pain, I never knew how to react. So instead, I didn’t react. I held no face expression that people had mistaken as fear. Of course, I was scared because all of these problems occurred around the same time and I was trying to complete grade 8 at the top of my class while my best friend tried to steal the one thing I wanted; Student of the Year. I tried to not completely suck on my competitive soccer team, and not fail horribly at playing the piano for my piano teacher. Wow, my life must be so hard.

The only bad thing that happened to me was minor compared to everything else but, it changed how I thought about people. My closest friends, the people I would do anything for, turned against me. See, my mom heard of this special high school program that was very advanced and could help me out when I was older. I thought it sounded like a great idea even though I knew it would mean going to a different high school, but I thought I owed myself because I had always put my friends before me and for once in my life, I wanted to put myself before my friends. The next day at school I told my friends the news and they went ballistic. They told me it was stupid and proceeded to ignore me. My best friend gave me the cold shoulder for a long time and called me something I never thought she would. I didn’t know what to do. The place where I used to feel so happy, suddenly felt like a prison and I couldn’t wait until I could leave and cry in my pillow. But I didn’t leave my problems alone, I faced them. I told everyone how what they did made me feel. I forgave them for all the bad things they did and we became friends again. But I am always reminded that sometimes, the only person you can truly trust is yourself.

Finally, I completed grade 8 at the top of my class and received the Student of the Year Award. For once, I could enjoy the night without a care in the world. My family was a family. They all told me how proud they were of me and I loved it. I got everything I had wanted; undivided attention.

Half the time I like to spend my summer indoors alone watching Netflix. The other half of the time I like to spend it with friends. I’ve always had this thing that if I don’t see my friends enough or go outside, I get depressed and I end up not wanting to go outside at all. My brother will end up dragging me outside of the house to do something. Some reason my friends were incredibly busy this summer so I ended up only seeing them once or twice the whole summer.

My family is not very typical. We don’t have friendly barbecues or family outings. We don’t even eat together. This summer I became so lazy that I never did any chores or helped out. So most of the time, my mother who works up to 14 hours a day in a hospital would shout at me for hours telling me to do something. She’d get mad at me for not responding to her and complain about everything I did wrong. While she shouted at me I’d just sit there sort of blanked out. I’d hear what she says but I’d never lash out. Most of the time she’s only mad at me because my older brother previously got her annoyed so she took all her anger out on me. I’m like the family punching bag.

My dad is always locked up in his room. He comes out of it to eat and work. He barely talks to my mom. The only time he ever looks happy is when he’s on the phone with his brother’s and sister’s. I’d grown up to think he has 2 families; his actually family (my mother, brother and I) and the family he cares about (his many brothers and sisters). One day I was playing a soccer game but I was not playing well. That day I just wasn’t in the mood. The grass was too long and I could feel liquids in my stomach swishing every time I ran. My dad was one of those soccer parents that compares me to all the good players and wonders why I can’t be like them. My dad told me that if I wasn’t going to play well then I should just sit on the bench or even quit. He made me feel worthless.

If you tell a person something’s wrong with them, they’ll eventually believe you. Well that’s how I felt. My family continuously made me feel worthless and good for nothing. I felt reminded that there will always be someone better than me and I’m just dead weight bringing everyone down. Everyone was disappointed in me and they made me hate myself. The sad thing is that even though they said all that stuff to me, I could never say I hated them because although they see all the bad in a person, I see all the good.

I’d like to believe there are good people in this world. And I’d also like to believe that someday, I’ll be one of them; a selfless person who has trust and faith in themselves and always sees the good when everything is bad. I don’t want to please everyone, be the richest there is, the most successful, or the most famous. I want to be happy. Is that too much to ask?