to the world || #lovesimon

once loved, once lost, now found

Dear World,

I'm seventeen and I can tell you I'm the ruler of poor life choices.

When I was in the first grade, I stopped wearing dresses and tried to separate myself from the suffocating feeling of being a girl that plagued me. That was one of the first mistakes I have made because I spent the next seven years questioning my identity and getting yelled at by my parents who were confused by my sudden change.

In seventh grade, I think that's where I started messing up the most. I developed an eating disorder because my best friend-turned-crush at the time convinced me that being skinny would make me happy. Let me tell you, as much as I tried shoving down any feeling of love and adoration to girls, she always made my heart stop. She was toxic and suffocating but I followed her because she was all I had. She turned my grade against me and they ate me alive that year.

Then ninth grade, I came out to my grade as non-binary and pansexual and from that day on, I was called horrible names in the halls by kids I thought I could forgive for previous years of pain. The wounds they created re-opened and the pain was more intense then before. How can anyone become so cruel after trying to redeem theirselves? How can anyone be so cruel when the world was harder for us because we were children of color? The world was already against us from the second we were born, how can they hurt me even more when we were already in pain? I guess there wasn't an understanding that the world would chew anyone who wasn't white, cis or straight up and spit us right back out.

In tenth grade, I managed to get myself into a toxic relationship where my boundaries were not respected. I wanted to be loved so I put up with it, not wanting him to leave me. It was bad decision after another, I don't know how to make the right decisions sometimes but I'm trying.

My goal is not to make this as sad as I feel, because heaven knows I learned my lesson. Now in my senior year, the one's who had scorned are scared to come into my path, I've become volatile and bitter as the years have passed. I won't let anyone cross or hurt me because I already hurt enough. Years of surviving, taught me that to live I need to become stronger emotionally and mentally.

To the world that has thrown obstacle after me even when I was down, thank you. You have taught me lessons that made me into who I am today. While I make poor decisions, every time someone called me out of my name because of who I am or who I loved, I have decided to do what I have to, to finally find the love I deserve.

Love,
@tarots-