I know that right now everything is wonderful and funny and you're still seeing things in the reds, yellows, blues.... but this will not last, believe me.
You still count down the months, weeks, days, hours and minutes until your next birthday because, really, what joy is there like to be a year older.... but I promise you that you will look back and you will miss those seconds, those moments spent wanting to be something more, without ever acknowledging all that you are. You will turn nine and forget what it feels like to be eight. Then, one day, you'll be dreading the next birthday because life just isn't birthday cake and blown out candle wishes anymore.
Do not forget what it is like to be eight. Do not forget what it is like to be small enough to be carried on your father's back, to sit in the couch under your grandfather's arm. Do not forget what it is like not to care about the size of your thighs, to not know outrage at injustice, to not know that there are pains worse than a skinned knee from a fell bicycle.
Before you know what it is like to lose a best friend, to be fooled by the wrong guy, to realise how unhappy your parents are. Before you sit, scared and shaking, on the phone with a girl who has taken a handful of pills and wants to end her life. Before your friends throw up lunch like it is a new fashion, and they are all on trend. Before you fail a class, really fail a class—beating yourself up, feeling unworthy, a failure. Before the world became shades of grey.
Now, you are eight and none of these terrible things have happened to you. You smile at the girl in the mirror when you brush your teeth, for you have yet to be taught the worst hate of them all; to hate who you are. You have yet to even realise you had hair to fix or a smile to straighten. You, in pink two-piece sparkly swimsuit, unaware of the fact that thighs that touch are wrong, for whatever reason. Before the nitpicking and the people pleasing, the changing and the shame, the grooming and the loathing. Before it mattered what they found attractive, what they didn't. You still know that you are perfect.
You have not been touched, greedily and unapologetically. You, with your baby skin and naive mind, giggling at the scientific names for genetalia. You do not hate him, or him... or him. You do not even know them. You, that virgin soil, are unblemished and unashamed.
I am sorry. I am sorry that you will turn eighteen and bitter and angry. I am sorry that will know loneliness better than yourself. I am sorry that you have lost family, friends, love. I am sorry that you have depended on things; the painkillers (Advil for the physical pains, Panadeine for the rest) and the cough syrup (for the sleep, mostly, but sometimes for the cough) and the vodka (for the demons); instead of people, who let you down when you relied on them, trusted them. I am sorry that you have hated yourself. I am sorry that you have had darker days than any of those you thought you had needed that blue nightlight.
....and I am not sorry. I am not sorry that you have learnt to let go, at least to some degree, of those who hurt you. I am not sorry that you are critical, smart, careful and clinical. I am not sorry that you are strong. I am not sorry that you have learned that hate too is passion, and passion is the fire that keeps you alive. I am not sorry that you have changed, have grown up.
This is who we were, who we are, who we will be.... and I am learning that it is okay to be okay, but know that sometimes you will not be okay. This too is okay. We are okay.
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Some more early morning writing. It is a beautiful 6:27 as I begin and 7:33 as I end. I am scared, mostly. There's a whole world outside of my blue bedroom and I have to face it next week. Some days I feel like I'm going to throw up. Other days I feel next to nothing at all. I'm running out of time. I'm not ready.
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