I have always praised my aunt. She is tall and skinny, always wearing floor length dresses, floppy straw hats and sunglasses. She smiles all the time and calls everyone sweetie. I have always wanted to be like my aunt. She knows there is a time to cry and a time to laugh, and accepts these things. Wearing her heart on her sleeve is something she does with pride, because humans are a feeling creature, she says, and we don’t need to hide these things from others.

I suppose my aunt hasn’t always been this way. Perhaps she hasn’t always shone light wherever she walked. Perhaps there was a time when she didn’t know. Perhaps there was a time when she didn’t know that she would marry her best friend and have two wonderful sons who grew up to be loving fathers and husbands. Perhaps there was a time when she prayed to make it to the end of the day without bursting out in tears because it was simply too much just to live. Perhaps she just didn’t know. This realization hit me harder than a semi on some random night when I was a freshmen.

It had been happening ever since Trevor had left. Trevor was my best friend. I hadn’t known him long, but in the short time that we were friends I would consider him to be a brother of mine. He protected me and made sure I was okay. When he left, it felt like something inside me broke.

We were all sitting in my room, Bell, Desiree, and I. It started out as any normal girls night. Desiree, Bell and I were best friends and spent one night each weekend together, at one of our houses. We watched movies, sang karaoke, and talked about our boys. Maybe we went on walks or ding dong ditched the neighborhood with the other kids that lived there, but it didn’t matter much what we did. We were just having fun. This weekend it was my house. I’m not sure why, but it was. We were in my room listening to music or watching Netflix when Bell’s phone rung.

This was kind of odd. It was 11 at night, and for eighth graders that’s pretty late. I knew I would’ve been in bed if it weren’t for the fact that my two best friends were at my house tonight. Bell picked up her phone and looked at it like it was a foreign device. She turned the screen towards Desiree and I and we saw that the contact named Boo Bear was calling her. She answered it and slowly put it to her ear, as if it were a bomb likely to explode in her hand.

“Hello..?” she asked slowly. She knew it was Trevor, but was confused as to why her boyfriend would be calling her an hour before midnight when he had told her he would be busy all weekend and wouldn’t be able to talk to her.

Desiree and I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but we knew it was Trevor. The deep baritone of his voice vibrated our chests. We shared a puzzled look then turned our attention towards our best friend, drinking up her facial expressions as if they were the last drops of water on Earth. Her eyebrows were knit together in confusion, her eyes downcast and slowly filling with tears. I had never seen this face before. It seemed like the face of a puppy after being hit by a newspaper for the first time, not sure what it did wrong.

Crying was not my strong suite. This is why I was bad a friendships. I felt uncomfortable when people cried around me and didn’t know how to comfort them. I slowly turned my attention towards the blanket that was covering our legs. It was zebra print with purple edges. Desiree also owned this blanket. My eyes wandered, looking for something to take my attention away from my close to crying friend on the phone with her boyfriend. My light purple walls served as a temporary distraction. I thought to myself, if I shall have a gun put to my head and I have to recall the pattern of my wallpaper I shall live. I was just saying that to make myself feel better for not supporting my friend.

The headboard was next, covered in books and knick knacks. I studied each one, all the while coming up with excuses as to why I would ignore my friend like this. I behaving so rudely, yet I did nothing to fix my behavior. I studied my black curtains and the outline of the blinds behind them. The popcorn ceiling and the places where it looked like an elephant or a flower.

For how long this went on for I could not tell you. It could’ve been seconds or hours. Maybe even months or years. Yet my eyes never got tired, searching the walls of my bedroom for the support that Bell needed. I slowly let my eyes wander back to Bell. She was crying silently. The words she uttered to Trevor broke my heart into a million pieces. “You’re leaving?” she questioned, then added “but you’re the only thing I have.” This is where it started. I felt numb, yet I felt everything. I somehow ended up right next to Bell, hugging her broken pieces back together. The rest of the night is a blur of tears and ice cream.

A snippet of a conversation us girls had that night sticks out in my head. We were talking of Trevor, wondering why he would up and leave. It was near 2 in the morning, our bodies and minds exhausted, but still we sat there talking on and on about Trevor.

“He was my best friend” I said, not really sure what I meant by this. Desiree had been my friend since kindergarten so surely she was my best friend. Trevor and Bell had been dating for two years, so surely she had a greater connection to him than any of us had. Yes still I felt this brokenness inside me that must’ve been caused by Trevor’s leaving.

Isabel and Desiree must’ve understood. They both looked at me with their puffy eyes as if to say “yes, we understand, he was our best friend, too and we feel your pain.” But they didn’t feel my pain. They didn’t know what this felt like. Bell was bawling, and Desiree was crying, but I had wept no tears. My eyes were dry, yet my heart was still weeping, the tears flowing through my body like drugs. I felt like I could float away, like I was nothing, but at the same time there was a ten ton weight tied to my heart, pulling me down. My stomach was in knots and I felt like I was going to throw up, but I was starving.

I felt nothing, yet I felt everything.

It continued on like this for some time.  I barely made it through the day. I didn’t feel anything. I sat. I ate. I slept. Then one day I cried. I started crying and I couldn’t stop. I was sitting on my bed, which was part of my usual routine, but something was different. I was thinking. Some little voice in the back of my head broke out and screamed at me. “What are you doing?!” he yelled. Of course the voice was a he, men always scared me when they yelled. I ignored it and sat some more. Once again, this voice in the back of my head spoke up “What are you doing?!” he asked again. Once again, I ignored. The question kept popping up in my head, over and over, in different voice. My moms, Bells, Desirees, my grandmas, my teachers, everybodys.

The tears kept coming. I didn’t know what I was doing. I never thought. I never cried. What was so wrong with today? Something must be wrong with me. I thought. I must be pregnant. Which was an illogical thought because I was still a virgin.

I am worthless. I thought, over and over again.

I cannot even control my own emotions. I curled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, holding myself together in a tight ball.

I am an ugly creature. My eyes were blood red and puffy, steaks going down my face in every direction.
Why am I such an ugly creature? What is so wrong with me? Why am I crying? I must be sick. I must be doing this because I am sick. Is this what depression is?

Depression was a chapter taught in our health class, but I didn’t pay much attention. Depression is considered a psychological disorder. I looked it up. One word: depression. The symptoms read on and on, and most of these things that had been wrong with me fit the description. I threw my phone. I am not depressed. I said to myself. My parents would be so ashamed. They would have to pay for psychologists and pills and all sorts of other things.
I carried on my show. I acted normal. I found a razor and brought it to my skin, just to feel something. I took handfuls of pills to try to end this horrible show that I had put on. I sat in scalding hot water and drank up the warmth, and I cried.

It took me a while, but I stopped. I talked to somebody about my feelings and I wrote down the things I thought. Sean became my best friend. I never told Desiree these things I felt in the off chance that she would think I was crazy. Bell had drifted away and we were no longer friends with her, and I couldn’t afford to lose Desiree, too. Sean became my free therapist. He told me the things that were good about me. He said I was smart and that I could accomplish great things. I told him about my aunt and how I wanted to be like her, and he said I could. I believed him.

I sat in front of my mirror and looked at myself. I am not hideous. I may be ugly, but I am not hideous. I did this every night for a couple of weeks. I uttered the same ridiculous words every day, staring at myself.

Then the next week: I am not ugly. I may not be good looking, but I am not ugly.

The week after that: I am not worthless. The tears would come to my eyes then. I can accomplish something. It was one thing to hear these things from someone close to you, and a completely different thing to say these things to yourself while sitting on your bedroom floor. I probably looked crazy, but I didn’t care. I helped myself. I fixed myself. I picked myself up and told myself never again. I know that I may not have suffered from depression, but that is the only plausible explanation. It is the closest thing to the truth I have found so far, and that I will stick with.

Now, I am a beacon of love and hope to those around me. I smile at strangers and dish out compliments. I have come to terms with the fact that it is okay to cry, and it is okay to question your decisions, but to an extent. You shouldn’t hate yourself, and you should always see the beauty in the things you have accomplished. I now know that I am a human being, and humans are a feeling creature. I have now become my aunt, and I am proud of that.