My life has always been defined by the nots.


I'm not pretty. I'm not smart. I'm not the best; thus, I'm a failure.


At least that's how I see things. Because I blow things out of proportion. Because I am overly critical of life, or as I like to call it, being a realist. My life has been spent trying to live up to my own expectations, and in this case the saying, “the only one you have to beat is yourself,” is a bad thing. Because I literally beat myself up. Because I was my own failure. This fact was never more evident to me than in fourth grade…


Kindergarteners can’t keep secrets. That’s something I should have known from the beginning, but I had to learn at the cost of a family I could confide in, and relate to.


As many classrooms do, in that fourth grade year we had study buddies, younger kids (often kindergarteners) who we helped learn socialisation skills.


I mean it in the most sarcastic way possible when I say it was amazing and enjoyable.


But, my buddy, nonetheless, got extremely attached to me, something I saw no real problem with. Who doesn't like being the centre of attention?


That mind frame didn't last long.


Back then, I distinctly remember wondering, "when is life going to get good again?" Because to me, life wasn't good. I thought I was fat. I thought I was stupid. I thought I was a failure and everyone was better than me. I wasn't popular. I couldn't play sports to save my life. At the time these things were huge deals. So one day I told my study buddy I wanted to die.


And all hell broke loose.


Well that's what seemed like to me. She told a teacher and I got sent to the principal's office. Apparently someone killing themselves would look bad on their records. So they called my parents and told them.


And it got worse.


They decided that somehow I only said that because I was reading Twilight (Twilight?!) at the time, and took away the series. They displayed no concern whatsoever, instead thinking I was being melodramatic and looking for attention. Either that or emulating someone in media. I doubt it ever crossed their minds I wasn't joking. This wasn't a publicity stunt; in fact, I would've been fine if no one knew. But to them I was just being a kid, which is to say, not serious.


Great parenting skills there.


That event marked a turning point in my relationship with my parents. They were no longer the ones I could tell everything to; rather, they were the ones who would punish me for my emotions. I was reluctant to answer their barrage of questions about school, in fear of not giving the correct answer and having something else taken away. My parents became the villains in the story of my life.


Even my friends were decidedly less than understanding. And to a fourth grader, being alone for a second is a tragedy. Something that happened to me, which, as you can imagine, was the antithesis of enjoyable.


But even when it feels like the world's going to end, time keeps on going, and soon enough it was summer. Then, free from the stress and drama of school, I still had to deal with my parents and brother.


Needless to say, that was not a particularly enjoyable time period. Every day was a shouting match about something mundane I was too lazy to do. Or something else entirely.


I lost having a party on my tenth birthday because I was being "disrespectful to my brother". Well, excuse me for not wanting to share everything with him. According to them I'm supposed to love him and be his friend and protect him.


I didn’t see it that way.


Because of my unrelenting stubbornness, more arguments ensued, quite a few of them concerning the rarely questioned subject of family. Family is a term made up by clingy humans who felt some absurd need to make it an obligation to love people you’re related to, which has no logic to it whatsoever. You choose everyone else you have an attachment to. Family, you’re stuck with, and expected to love, trust and respect them. In my eyes, trust, love, and respect, all have to be earned, and it takes a lot to earn them. Those fights, I can justify. But the arguments not about family were me overreacting like the spoiled child I was.
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Due to a lack of experience and exposure to a life other than my relatively privileged one, I didn’t see myself as spoiled. I had just about everything I could ask for- my own room, food, clothes, and just about all the frivolities I could ask for, but all I could see was the bad. The things I didn’t have. I didn’t have a nonexistent bedtime. I didn’t have someone to do my chores and homework for me. I didn't get to do whatever I wanted. I didn’t have a way to get rid of my brother. I could've listed things for days that I didn't have. I was then still too blind, perhaps too naïve, to see what I had, and how lucky I was to have it.
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Though, throughout the following years, the arguments and yelling tapered off and life became some semblance of "normal" again. I still have the iron head and the occasional shouting match with my parents. I still don’t trust them as far as I can throw them, but life shouldn’t be spent wondering when it’s going to get better. So I follow their whims and beliefs. And, things become bearable. Even if, in my mind at least, I will forever be inadequate…


Things change. People change. Life goes on. But scars from all the little paper cuts in the past, hold on. Every scathing word and turned back leaves one. They warp you, and they change you, beyond all hope of ever being who you were.