This year has been hell. Figuring out a separation that I never wanted because I still loved them. And a flood, literal and figurative, as my apartment flooded taking away everything that no longer mattered. Mental strain meant depression and anxiety. My whole world felt like it was crashing around me.
And it kinda was.
But I had people, friends, who came to my aid. Who held me up when they had no clue what was going on. I have been a hurricane and they were caught in the eye. And yet they stayed, just talking to me and being there for me. I needed them and they were there.
These friends. They are different than anything I have known.
I don’t expect you to understand what they are or how they live. You don’t need to understand it. It isn’t for you to experience. But we all respect each other’s experiences. We let them have their own experience in this life. We don’t try to change each other.
I love these people closest to me because they have become a part of my own experience here. But not only that, they have become my happiest memories.
I’ve been searching for that since I left home. And finally I found it. I wanted to bring home some of that happiness to share with my original family only to see that they would not welcome it.
Too different, they said.
Sinful, they called it.
Sometimes I wonder if sinful replaced happy. Can no one be happy anymore without being sinful? Is happiness a sin?
Because if it is, I don’t want to be on your side. I don’t want to be alive if it means that I will never be happy. So instead, I’ll stay on my side. I will shine my own light and let others celebrate with me. Because in this light, I can be my purest form. I can be most happy with others who celebrate me as I am.
Maybe I am too different. But here, that isn’t a bad thing. And for that reason, I am staying here.
Just Ryn 