Just hang on one more day…

For the past three years I’ve been telling myself to just hang on for one more day. That one day has turned into three years, and I don’t know where all the time went. For 3 years I’ve been forcing myself to live in the present and not worry about anything else behind or infront of me. I’m afraid if I stop doing this I’m not going to make it.

I remember my friend telling me once that she had promised herself that she would not live to see her 16th birthday. That came and went, and she made a new goal of the same nature, but for her 18th. That’s just around the corner, but I’m not as worried as I was the first time. She didn’t go through with it. She almost did, and ended herself up in a psychiatric hospital for the past year or so. Everyone who sees her from a distance mentions how much different she is and how much she’s changed. While I’m standing in front of her wondering why nothing has changed at all. I know from experience that there are two kinds of self-injurers. Those who do it because they are so completely drowned within themselves that they can’t even think clearly and don’t necessarily know any other way to cope. And those who do it for attention. My "friend" is the latter. I’m so completely and utterly ashamed and embarassed to have ever called her a friend. All she has ever done is pull me down with her. All conversations with her would consist of something to do with cuts or scars, or counsellors, or therapists, or pills, or psychiatric hospitals. She wears her scars as some sort of badge. Walking around like she’s been through it all, and is better than everyone else just because in her mind she’s had it worse than anyone. I used to feel bad for her, and I still do in a way, mainly because I know deep down that there really is something wrong, but she’s maybe just handling it the wrong way, or bragging too much about how much she’s suffered. I know better than to let myself be overcome by her. If anyone mentions how much better she looks, I just smile and nod and know that they will never understand that she maybe hasn’t changed much at all.

As for me, I’m still living my life one day at a time. It’s especially hard at this point in my life, as I’m in grade 12, and am being forced to plan my entire life out. I need to decide what I want to do with my future and decide which college or university to go to. I’m afraid. Afraid I’ll never amount to anything. Never be good enough. I’m afraid if I let myself think too much about the future I’ll forget that I want to keep living.