If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
If you told the 28-year-old me where I would be when I turn 30, I would believe you.
If you told the 25-year-old me where I would be when I turn 30, I would also believe you.
If you told the 20-year-old me where I would be when I turn 30, I would definitely believe you.
If you told the 18-year-old me where I would be when I turn 30, I would honestly believe you.
I would believe you because, at an early age of 3 years old, I was already broken. I was 11 when I realized that. And I have been that since. No amount of willpower and bettering myself has ever worked in my favor.
I could go on and on about blaming my parents for everything they have and have not done. I could go on and on about blaming God for allowing things to happen to me.
But one thing is clear to me now.
Everything that is happening to me now was all thanks to my doing. Everything wrong going on in my life has been pretty much because of being dysfunctional. I have failed the 8-year-old me, and it looks like I’m also headed towards disappointing the 80-year-old me.
Where I am right now was never what I imagined it to be at any given point in my life. However, I already had this foreboding feeling that this was really where I’d end up.
There is a striking contrast between where I am right now, where I thought I would be, and where I hope I would be.
I won’t tell you exactly where I am right now, but it’s the same dark, hopeless place I have been in since I turned 18. So, if you ever asked me where I would choose to live if I had the choice and the means, I would answer it this way.
Anywhere but here. I would choose anywhere in the world except here.
I would trade half of my lifespan to whoever just to get me out of here. I had not known love. I had not known companionship. I had not known peace. I had not been able to sit with myself without wanting to break every bone in my body.
You see, a day living as not me would be better than a thousand days as me. If you could take a peek inside my head, you would see a prison cell. A dark, smoky room. And a little child.
Anywhere but here. I wish I were able to become an adult who could rescue that child and take her out of here. But I ended up becoming someone who also needs rescuing, but with no one to reach out to.
I wish I had even a glimmer of good in me. I’m sure a bubbly personality would have catapulted me out of here. Or maybe a more positive personality, despite everything, would have done the job as well. In any case, I am here now, but I wish to be anywhere but here.