October 23rd, 2016

The following is something I wrote a while ago. It is a constant reminder to me that I must stay attentive. While my past may be my past, I must learn to keep everything there. I must learn to keep everything that will not affect me away from a world that I have come to love. One of the biggest confessions I must make is that what is written below is no longer pertinent to today's life. I am happy, my sister is free, and while the past is in the past, I am choosing to live in the future, as you should do as well. I hope the bottom below will offer a glimpse into who I am as a person.

As my second article, I believe it is important to understand that millennials must stick together, through thick and thin, no matter the circumstances one goes through. It is my biggest wish that as a generation we are able to connect and compromise, to accept one another for who we are, and while that may take time, I see that as a future for all of us. So please enjoy a look at my past, but remember, while the past is the past, I choose to live in the future, and in the future, I know we'll all live happily.

- Blake Sterling

"The room at the end of the hall has no light in it. It is dark and secluded away from the rest of the world, and I like to call that sanctuary. Sanctuary away from a mother who asks the most embarrassing questions a child can think of; away from a father who feeds himself before he feeds his children; away from a brother ten years younger who doesn’t know how to leave someone alone when told to do so and has no friends; away from a sister who seems nonexistent, always away from the house; away from another sister who hides her pain and loneliness in bottles of wine and vodka; away from a world so hurtful that it drives me to stand here, in the dark, just to escape something I should never want to.

It’s funny, because this one place that seems so far away cannot hide the sound of sirens racing down the street, nor can it hide the sounds of yelling between my youngest sister and my mother. They argue, day in and day out as if there was something so important that they needed spend their short amount of time using it to tear each other’s throats out in a vicious fight that even the neighbors could hear.

Then my mother attempts to bring me into this fight, comes running down the hall, complaining about the blankets left there to be cleaned, how all my sister ever does it take, take, take, and never give, never appreciates anything my mother is trying to do for her. As she comes trotting down the hallway, even I could feel the tension building outside my locked door. I can feel it oozing into my oasis from under the door and what am I supposed to do about this? What am I supposed to do about my mother rasping on my door as my sister is slamming her door down the hall? Why am I being dragged into something that I was never supposed to be in? And why now, on a Sunday night, when the sun is just setting, there is an air of quiet in the atmosphere that is being viciously torn apart second by second?

What am I supposed to do?

Maybe I’ll stay quiet and hope that she leaves, or will my mother bust down my door like my younger brother did once when I attempted to flee from his insistent attempts to use me as his slave and run me rampant on finding his joy? Will she assume I am not home, that I have run away this night to find peace and quiet away from a family that finds yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs the norm in a society where that is quickly becoming frowned upon? I wonder what will happen?

As I finally look up, the orange of an Oklahoma midsummer sunset is fading into the eternal blackness of night. The rasping on my door by my mother becomes almost a rhythmic attempt to push me into reality and away from my subconscious mind of thought. I can see the outline of the dressers that line the corner of my room. I can see the two windows as they meet like two lovers torn apart by the ravages of time, and are finally meeting at the corner of a long forgotten intersection of two walls of a bar in the middle of a town that no one cares for.

What do I do as my family is being torn apart by my sister’s reliance on alcohol to hide from all of her problems that she created; by my mother’s constant use of parenting methods that have not been productive; by my father’s complete selfishness in a world where this is normal for fathers to do; by my brother who listens to no one and acts however his ten-year-old mind wants him to act?

After what seems an eternity of rasping away at my door, my mother reluctantly gives up on her attempt to drag me into something that she started. I looked around at the darkness of my room and decided to break it with the bright blue of my phone. 8:45 pm. No calls, no texts, no notifications. Was this how I was going to waste away my life, never talking to anyone, never doing anything great? Perhaps I could set up the apps on my phone to send me notifications to make myself feel like I’m important, but would that actually fix anything? Would that do anything helpful in a world so full of masks?

Most likely not. Most likely it would make me realize that I am merely wasting my life away, as is the rest of my family. Here I am, just barely graduating into the realm of adulthood and I’ve done nothing for my life. I sit home nearly every day, contemplating how I should put my minute number of minutes to good use. All I ever do is plan, plan, plan, but I can never seem to work up the energy to actually get up from my chair, put the social media page on a standstill and do something with my life.

But here I am, again giving the flaws of those closest to me without ever revealing mine. As for me, I lack the motivation to do anything worthwhile. I lack the drive to get up and put the talents that I actually have to good use. I lack the independence to provide for myself, to save for myself, or to even work for myself. And where did my motivation go? Better yet, I should ask, when did I lose my motivation?

For that, I can give you the exact date that it happened. It was February 2nd, 2015. On this day, I lost my best friend to my own anger, impatience, and his selfish controlling manner. I don’t mean as in there was a death that occurred, no that will occur later down this path of repentance that I am on, and sooner than I realize. What I mean is that he quit being my friend or more, I should say I quit being his. To be honest, I don’t understand if I was trying to make more of my relationship with him than I realized, or if we simply grew apart as friends often times do.

Whatever the reason, I made a downward spiral from that date and it left me with a sense of no motivation to continue on. I had no drive to even continue what I was doing. I dropped out of nearly all of my college courses, locked myself behind my door and wasted my life away to the shriveling nothingness that it has come to today.

Shame on me, for all of that, but looking here at the 8:45 pm on my phone made me only feel worse about the situation I was in. My sister contemplated suicide. My sister made a plan to fake her death once, then really do so the next time. My sister was hurting because she was all alone. My sister wanted to give a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And what hurt me the most was that at one point in my life, I too was the same. I too had a plan, a desire to do something so horrendous, but, in my journey I was able to overcome it, promising to myself that I would never want to feel that way again.

Yet, here she was, sitting in the room right next to mine, feeling the same way I had once felt, and this hurt me. It hurt me so much that I couldn’t help but to let myself feel the pain I had once felt. It hurt me so much, because by standing here looking at my phone, I can’t do anything to help her. I don’t know how, and I am hurt by my inability to act. My flaw will be the death of me, or even worse, it’ll be the death of someone I love."

- Remember to love the life you live and live the life you love. We will stick together and will succeed.

P.S. As something written many years ago, I have come to understand that what I went through back then, what my sister went through back then, is over. Our futures have changed, and while the past may now be a scar, we will continue to push forward to a better future, as everyone should do, no matter your age, your beliefs, or anything else. Good luck, and go far.