Isn’t it funny how you know the storms coming but you’re never really prepared for it when it comes?

The cotton ball spotted sky was quickly chased away by darkness. I could feel the dark clouds starting to creep closer on me as my mother and I were speaking. I brushed it away changing the topic to my future. It had been on my mind for quite some time. What was I going to do after high school? What did I want to be? Normally mothers say something encouraging. I was not prepared for what she told me, even though I known it his feelings to be true. It just seemed to really sink in when I heard it out loud.

“Your dad thinks that you’re never going to leave home. He thinks that you’ll end up mooching off of us.” At that moment the knife had been lodged in my heart was twisted, slipped out and thrusted back into me. Darkness was now my puppet master. Commanding me to choke down my tears and give a wall defending remark that gave my mother no hint that I was shattered on the ground. I gathered myself for the rest of the car ride listening to my mother rant. But I did not make an effort to hear her. As soon as my legs hit land I slugged out of the garage and into more grey. The cotton ball sky from no more than five minutes ago was no were to be seen. I wanted it back. But I knew better. I was never going to see those clouds again.

My room no longer felt comforting as it always had. Looking around at all the trinkets, most from him, it was another stab to my chest. After a few moments, my eyes found my escape. I quietly stepped toward it, as if it were going to run away from me. I picked it up; its smooth covering gave me the comfort I’d been looking for when I entered my “safe-haven” room. I slowly turned the pages to the portal where I had left just hours ago. This time it was not for fun. It was to forget, hopefully. But still there are only so many pages in a book. After it is done, so is your escape. Then memories start to creep up on you again like a robber in an ally looking for treasure. Its treasure was my pain, my tears. The robber even took some respect I had for that man.

One thing the robber did not take away from me, the one thing the darkness could not take from me either was my stubbornness and my determination. After my mother had told me I thought I was nothing. But who is he to determine me? Because I did not give up, I wanted to prove him wrong. I wanted to prove to him that I can be anything that I have the ability, the will, and the drive. And I will prove him wrong.