Another Opportunity

My alarm pulls me from a few hours of fitful sleep. Despite my bed being inches away, I had cried myself to sleep on the floor under a fallen quilt. It was a Thursday I think (a school day in any event), and I had slept in my school clothes. Though, that night, I wasn't supposed to wake up. I had sat on the ledge of my lofted bedroom looking out the sea of furniture that was so easy to fall on and feel the painful snap of my bones. Maybe I'd be paralyzed or my neck would snap or I'd bleed out. If it didn't work, I could always jump off the balcony and fall three stories...

And yet, I woke up. My scratched arms were easily hidden by my favorite jacket and the salt trails on my cheeks were wiped off before anyone else woke up. I don't remember anything but waking up that morning. I think it was the day I met my friend that I've known for seven or eight years now. It might have been the day I decided to try to write a novel or the day I wrote a poem on the bathroom stall that got recognized and was the only thing to not be painted over. Maybe I got an A that day or learned something that inspired me. It doesn't really matter now.

That day happened eight years ago. I was thirteen, had just moved to Texas, and was struggling. I had sat on the ledge crying for a couple minutes before I slid onto the floor and listened to Eminem and Paramore until I cried myself to sleep. That was a random day in a long day of teenage angst that I am still not over yet. I turn twenty-one in a few months though, and I don't know how I feel about that. I have done things that that kid would dream of. I got the fuck out of middle school then high school. My family finally got a dog. I got to see England. I got to meet people that became the lifelong friends that I had dreamed about since I was little. I became a writer (though I am still an amateur) and a scientist and I learned to speak Spanish.

One decision led to a new life course, though the first wasn't going to lead to much worse honestly. It's strange that the memory of that night is what I think of every time I open my eyes in the morning now.