As a youth

I was very angsty as a teenager, extremely depressed and truly a bad child. I would self-harm, collected various knives, even brought one to junior high because I had my very own bullies. Someone saw me putting it into my bag at the bus stop and shortly after arriving to the school I was promptly suspended for ten days. At home, there were many times I snuck out through my window and ran off in the middle of the night to go see my entirely-to-old boyfriend (more on this another day) or to ride down to the beach to do "witchcraft" with a friend on the full moon on the shore. Truly, we had no idea what we were doing, but it was fun pretending that we were in the craft, asking the universe to shower us with wealth. Obviously it didn't work, as intended anyway. I would say I am wealthy in my relationship with my husband, though I have gone through quite a few duds to get to where I am now.

Besides sneaking out, I expressed my emotion through poetry. I had a small journal I'd gotten from a junior high version of a book fair. It was the coolest journal, reminded me of dragon skin. Embossed with scales, though not like snake scales, it was more random. Maybe a lizard? I can't exactly recall. It was an iridescent green that shifted colors between blue and yellow and I colored the edge of the pages black. I wrote so many poems in there. Most were angsty, some were about vampires because of course vampires are cool and trendy. I remember one that even got "published" in a collection of poetry which I thought was so cool at the time. Of course I had to beg to for a copy of the book my poem was published in. Eventually the company I submitted that poem to went out of business and the domain was taken over by another entity. I also later found out that they published the poem you submitted on the first page of the copy you ordered and it was unlikely to appear in any other versions. I was so proud of that particular poem but it's lost forever. I remember it was titled "Darkness falls" but that doesn't help at all when we live in a world in which Vincent Price and Michael Jacksons "Thriller" exist. Obviously I've tried and failed to recover it, I don't know if I have the patience for poetry these days.

I also was very into art. I remember once when I was maybe 14 or 15, I scrawled an angel with black wings and red gown, ripping them off and sitting in a pool of blood. I hung it on the fridge, my mother was obviously not impressed or entertained. I thought it looked beautiful though and I'd put a lot of effort into it. My art wasn't horrible, you could definitely tell that's what it was on the paper. It also wasn't extremely realistic either. I was in a happy medium place for that. Art class was my favorite, my teacher...let's call her Ms. Jones for anonymity's sake...was very dear to me. She was like a mother to me, the mother I should have had. She always pushed me to explore different mediums and praised me when something warranted it. She also called me out when I was being lazy with a project and knew when I could do better but chose not to. I elected art classes with her all four years of high school. She actually did my hair and makeup for my prom and graduation. She came to see me graduate. My mother and step father didn't. Honestly that wasn't out of character for them at all, but I'll tell all about them in another entry. For now though, it's 9am and Saturday. I need some coffee.