So this is the day, this is when as long as nothing goes terribly wrong, Life ends and life begins again. When I was sixteen I realized what I would need to do if I ever wanted to be happy, when I was sixteen I realized what I would need to do if I didn't want to die, if I didn't want to want to die.
Sixteen years, Sixteen years from that day I hid who I was from everyone but myself and one other. Sixteen years I hated myself every day, prayed for death every day, tried so hard to keep myself together every day. Sixteen years where all I wanted was to scream to cry. Sixteen years I denied myself despite myself, a few times there where moments of light, but so few in the darkness often just that one flickering candle glimpsed for a moment to show me there was light.
Sixteen days, just Sixteen days sense I stepped out of the darkness and showed myself to the world. Sixteen days of fear and resolve. Sixteen days of old friends and new seeing me for myself. Sixteen days without lies, without hiding myself behind a hidden door. Sixteen days, not everything is healed there is still so much to face and I know it will still challenge me, but it will challenge me as I need to be.
Sixteen Hours, Sixteen Days, Sixteen Weeks, Sixteen Years, I don't know what the future will bring, but I have hope. Hope for the first time in Sixteen Years that tomorrow will be bright and perhaps even better than today, and if it is dark then still I have Hope for the next day.
So Today is the day I begin being who I am, all I am to all the world, all the time. Thank you so much for every one who has been there for me, for those who stood with me, both those who knew during the long night and those who knew only now as I enter the light, Thank You. One special thanks to a girl named Sarah who became a beautiful woman named Anna, and who held a light in the darkness for so long, through Sixteen years till I found my way.
--Serena
Full Time 6/24/2015
