From the diary of a self-searching teenager

I hate winter. It must be because I never fail to feel it all the time deep within, just dwelling there, haunting my inner being and proudly declaring victory after every fight. It’s funny how the more it stays inside the more I grow comfortable with it and just go along with whatever it has to bring. It always brings the same thing - emptiness. I hate winter because it manages to ruin every single summer of mine without even being there. I truly hate it.

The only thing I can recall from the last few hours is whiteness. Endless landscapes of white, where the sky and the earth look so much alike that it seems as if they’d created the perfect state of equilibrium uniting into one. It’s a whole new universe and I am the only black spot that stands out in there. I am the cause of chaos in a land of carefully built order. I see it. And I see the perfection in it. And I know that I’ll never be as perfect. And that terrifies me, it frightens me so much that I start to run. That I start to scream. And just like that I close my eyes and refuse to see. I blindly follow a previously defined path. And so I lose myself along the way. But I am trying to run away of the fear itself so much, that I don’t even realize this crucial detail until later. And later is the point that forces me to stop. Later is the point at which I hit something. Or rather something hits me so strong that the pain causes me to open my eyes. And see clearly into the winter after all that time. As I acknowledge that something’s missing I see dark silhouettes appearing as wolves coming nearby. I close my eyes once again, for if I can’t see them they as well might not be present there at all. And if I kick and hit and run they will be gone in reality as well. But what is reality anyways? What defines it? The world I go into when I close my eyes presents itself as a much better one than this mixed, never-ending place filled with emptiness and darkness and wolves. Why can’t I make my perfect little world beyond closed eyes my reality? Why can’t I live into my fear-free kingdom with everlasting summer, where I never need to buy warm clothes as a protection from winter. Where the wind is not able to blow me off my feet. Where my dreams always come true and I don’t feel as a chaos in a place of order. Where there’s no atrocities that create obstacles and harden life. And where most importantly nothing is perfect. Therefore I make an interesting realization. The power of will is a great one. Maybe I did not close my eyes because of fear and desire of escape. Maybe I closed them simply because that was my will. That was what I wanted to do. So I concentrate. And I open them. All of a sudden I can distinguish the sky. It’s somewhat lighter now. I notice the deep scars that all the struggles have left on my body. But now I also see that what seemed to be wolves were people. Mere people who were merely trying to help me and who I neglected in the state of strong egoism and self-centeredness. And while trying to fix what I managed to break I can sense the pieces of my lost self coming together. Far in the distance there is a spark. A spark of hope. It’s up to me to decide whether I shall follow. I feel power in my hand and wisdom on my mind. Self-realization is yet to be approached.

But all this winter will stay, making it hard to walk. Making it hard to see, but never succeeding into causing me to close my eyes ever again. Still, there’s no doubt I hate it.

For what is worth…

Ellie walked proudly and as she neared a group of people, all of who seemed to be somewhere about her age, she covered her face with a mystic smile, while giving a flirty wink and a cunning-like lift of the brow. As she sat down beside the people she addressed as friends, Ellie could deeply inhale the smoke in the air around her and she could spot cigarettes in her friends’ mouths. After taking a small sip from the vodka bottle handed over to her, she took out a cigarette of her own and pulled in the poisonous chemicals it contained inside her lungs. As she exhaled, dense clouds of smoke started coming out of her mouth and nose. Ellie was 16.

What’s the price young people have to pay nowadays in order to earn the super-high status in a high-school society? Ellie knew it wasn’t as complicated. Still, if you aim to get invited at the best parties, you have to do a little work. For starters, you change your outlook, and forget what cakes, sweets, fats and fast food looked and tasted like. You waste a whole bunch of your parents’ money on branded clothes, make-up, hairdo, perfumes, shoes, heels… You lose interest in everyone else’s interests, you grow your head too big and suck up to the queen-bee. The great struggle of strengthening your identity causes you to lose what little of it you possessed in the first place. But who cares, as long as it’s for the sake of partying. Grades, future and your own well-being are second-class things, family relations become almost no existent. Alienation’s in store for the parents, except when in need of money. And what exactly is to be paid with those money? Well, all the things that will cause people to keep inviting you to their parties, including alcohol, cigarettes and drugs, as you ruthlessly stick out the middle finger to all the warnings, pretending that the consequences won’t get to you…believing that all the enjoyment makes you unbeatable. Self-assured that mommy and daddy will take care of everything, hoping that all you’ll ever have to do it take large sips of the infinite stream of money, providing yourself with more make-up to hide the insecurity in your eyes. Loathing anyone who dares to raise his voice and claim he’s different, simply because you’ll never have the guts to do such a thing on your own. Mocking all the nerds, because unlike you they haven’t failed to select a fight-worthy goal in their lives, caring about their future, supporting and developing their intellectual skills (you know, the ones you yourself chose not to take an advantage of). Screaming that you’re daddy’s little girl no more in lack of the proof. Consciously misinterpreting the saying “that every day should be lived as if it was your last”. Striving to provoke envy in the hearts of others by playing the part of an unbreakable diva, while having nightmares if the truth beneath the surface somehow ends up exposed. Successfully erasing your personality, reproving your body to a point where it becomes unrecognizable, losing concern of what once used to be your main priority. Ensuring yourself with intangibility by satisfying the thirst for causing others misery. Intentionally attempting to grow up faster by doing things you’re mentally not really ready to do yet, which leads to acts of immorality. Refusing to realize that despite your perfect outer look, you shall always remain a scared little child in the chambers of your subconscious. But then again, you’re too young to worry right?
Twenty years later Ellie’s sitting on the floor in the corner of her gray-walled room. There’s emptiness filling her eyes and loneliness inside her heart. A single tear falls down her cheek and biting her lips she throws a piece of paper on a fair distance from her. And uncontrollable weeping follows, just as she realizes the things to come. Ellie has just been diagnosed with lung cancer.

Isidora Bojkovska