Positively Scarred

I often wonder if I’ve made all the right decisions thus far in life, and how, even if they were right, they affected the outcome to where I’m at now.

There’s the subtle things, like choosing to be a brain over a beauty in middle school. I took advanced classes, I had a higher vocabulary than most in my grade, I spent vacations reading, and I took studious notes. The alternative was to forgo working toward a bright, well-educated future and instead spend my time on boys, make-up, cheer leading, and the like. I was a geek, a nerd, a bookworm. I was proud.

One day in my 7th grade math class, we were asked to put together a book of vocabulary words that related to math. My teacher clearly stated that we “should put the words into terms that everyone can understand, not just yourself.” I got stared at. I probably read on a reading level three times higher than everyone in that class. I blushed. My friend sitting next to me laughed. I grinned. I was smart and damn proud.

By the time I reached high school I was done. At my wits end. Freshman year was a tumultuous roller coaster. I started smoking. I popped pills. My grades slipped. Boys and sexuality became top priority. “You’re so smart,” my teachers pleaded, “don’t throw away your future. You can do better than this, I know you can.”

By Thanksgiving, I was cutting. I wanted out. My anxiety was at an all time high. I kept my chin up and put on a facade. No one would notice if I blended in, right? By Christmas I was ready to be done. At the beginning of spring term, I’d come to terms with the fact that I wanted to be done. Over. Finito. Gone. I wrote a note, as high schoolers tend to do, to my best friend from elementary school whom I’d reconnected with that year. Another teacher got a hold of the note and I was thrown into counseling faster than you can say, “Please don’t read that!” I was so angry I had been found out. It had been my secret and how dare they try to take what was mine.

…But, counseling helped. My friends all supported me. I didn’t kill myself on my fifteenth birthday like I’d planned. I chose life over death. I chose to live.

The choices we make everyday affect us for the rest of our lives, no matter how much we try to deny it or forget it. I often wonder what my life would be like had I not decided to drink and drive on the night of April 29th. I wonder what would have become of my boyfriend and I. Would I still be at the same job? Would we still be together?

What would have happened if I would have passed pre-calculus and went on to AP calculus? What would have happened if I had taken the SATs and applied to colleges, instead of settling for what I knew, in the bottom of my heart, to be second best? I can’t tell you, or anyone, that my decisions were right. I only know that they’ve brought me to this part of my life.

So many years ago, I chose to live out of my own personal choice. And then, several years later, I made a choice that could have lead to death. It will affect me for the rest of my life, just as my personal decision to live before has.

As far as my previous choices go… I don’t think it matters if I passed pre-calculus, or took AP calculus or applied to colleges. These are small decisions compared to choosing to live, or being allowed to live.