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11:41 PM - Wednesday, Mar. 01, 2006 What I believed as a child came from the stories spun from the Bible, the myths created by the people from the past to bring spirit and joy into the lives of children like me. What they never tell you is, that as you grow older, the joy and the spirit of all of these things lose their appeal. You find that your birthdays don't matter as much. Seldom is there a thrill to opening up presents or blowing out the candles on your cake. Where is the magic that once came from growing a year older and celebrating life? As children, do we even understand that we are celebrating life, or was I one of the most naive beings to ever exist? I used to go into church, and I would do as I was told. I would be quiet as a mouse, dressed as nice as I could be dressed. I would kneel when I was supposed to kneel, stand when I was told to stand, the words of the ceremony becoming more familiar to me than the back of my hands. I could cite the memorized words the priest spoke along with the responses; but did I ever truly understand what they meant, or did I just accept them as the way? I would go up to Communion and extend my hands after making sure they were clean and not dirty. Dirty hands were disrespectful and possibly a sin. And the priest would stand there and say, "The Body of Christ," and I would reply, "Amen." Then I would put that piece of bread into my mouth and swallow, believing that I was swallowing the body of the Lord and accepting my passage into Heaven. Then I would go back to my seat and I would kneel, closing my eyes tight and praying as hard as I could pray. Sometimes I'd become so overwhelmed with emotion that I would have to fight back tears. And I knew that what I felt inside couldn't be as painful as what that man on the cross went through. So I would say, "Dear God, do with me as you will." I wanted to sacrifice my life for God. I wanted to make this being that I wasn't sure existed proud of me. So I prayed for the sick, and I prayed for the dying. I prayed for the children who were growing up hungry, who were beaten by their parents in unloving homes. I prayed for the homeless, and I prayed for the sinning. And I did it because I felt it was what I had to do. I was the lucky one. I didn't know suffering, even though every day I woke up I felt pain. And the entire time, I sat there saying, "Dear God, do with me as you will." And I believed things happened for a reason. I believed there was a purpose to everything. If someone died, in my heart I knew it was just their time to go. God needed them up in Heaven for some reason or another. I didn't know for sure if that was true, or if I was just saying these things to console my aching heart. And when it came to love, I believed there was a perfect match for everyone out there and that God would bring me mine. He would have a purple star above his head that matched the purple star above mine. We would come together and it would be as it was meant to be because everything that happens is meant to be. And I had faith, and I had hope, and I had dreams. And still, I said to God, "Do with me as you will." And when I entered high school, I became friends with certain people. For some reason I was apathetic to the people with problems, who came from homes that abused them... the students who ended up having sex and doing drugs and getting pregnant and dropping out. I counseled them. They listened to what I had to say as if I knew what I was saying. But did I really know what I was saying when I had never experienced the way they had lived? Or was everything I told them coming from some dreaming girl that still existed inside of me? I did not know. I could not know. And then I started to experience their lives. It blew me away to know the pain of a fist smacking into my flesh. It tore me apart to know what it felt like to give myself completely to someone and not receive a bit of them in return. It ripped me up, but I didn't know it was even trying too. So I hid behind the abuse of alcohol and drugs, hiding from the shame I felt at being the victim to the livelihood I never asked to enter. And when I got hit, and when I lost myself completely, I still sat there behind the masked face of an alcoholic drugged-up teenager crying to god to "do with me as you will." I believed, at that moment in time, that I was put in that position to experience so that I could know. And then I lost myself, and I died completely inside... drowning in the bottle that was overflowing with the suffocating experiences of my life. And I screamed from within, but nobody could hear me. Nobody cared to listen. And I shoved God out of the bottle and I told him "I have had enough", that I was tired of him doing with me as he willed. But even with God outside of the bottle, I'm still trapped inside. And the sad thing is, I'm not only drowning with my mind screaming in rage... I stopped screaming out because nobody would listen. Now, I'm surrounded by silence, only screaming on the inside. I'm the only one who knows my rage, anymore, because I'm the only one who can hear me.
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