The Inner Ritual

I don’t really remember the fight. I was only a baby back then. What’s left are the scars that prove it happened.

My parents remember everything. The fear, the waiting, the relief. I only know what I’ve been told.

I was told I had a brain surgery. I was even shown a picture once - me in a hospital bed, wires and machines attached to my body, like I belonged more to the room than to myself.

I’m fine now. At least, that’s what it looks like.

I live my life as a teenager. I hang out with friends, go to school, party, study - everything teens do. It’s mostly fun. But I find myself zoning out a lot, slipping away mid-conversation.

Sometimes I get the feeling like I don’t belong, even when I’m standing right where I’m supposed to be.

I grew up drawn to a different lifestyle, different stylistic choices - ones that don’t match where I live. And apart from that, I get criticized for it by my friends, which I hate. It also feels like my mindset is completely different from everyone else’s.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m broken.

I feel too much at times, and at others, I feel nothing at all. Weird, right? I might be hard for people to deal with. No one ever stays for very long.

People are scared of different. So I learned to hide parts of myself - as if that’s the only way to keep them close.

Although it’s not even my fault. The surgery altered my brain, I’ve come to believe.

I’m the strongest person you’ll ever meet, and yet I’m also the most vulnerable.

I’m a good, loyal, trustworthy friend. I care too deeply for the people close to me - maybe more than I should be - to the point where I always put my needs last.

Life is okay, I suppose. But I feel the need for more. I need to fulfill the part of me that’s been left empty.

I can’t let my scars define who I am. I need to leave my mark as a fighter - someone who didn’t let one thing define her whole life.

My life is beautiful on the outside, but the inside is messy. There are moments when the music is too loud and I still feel alone, when I smile at the right time but feel nothing behind it, when the conversations are forced out of my mouth.

Sometimes I wonder if the place is the problem, not me. Maybe somewhere else I would finally find my purpose.

I’ve always felt like an outsider in my own life. Like I was placed into someone else’s role and told to make it fit.

There was a time I shared my opinion and wanted to disappear afterward. I was verbally torn apart until I felt suffocated by hatred for no real reason. That moment taught me to keep my mouth shut, to keep my thoughts to myself.

I’m not one to complain, and I don’t want to sound ungrateful - but I believe this place is too small for me.

Maybe, at last, my trauma isn’t here to haunt me, but to lead me somewhere new.

Maybe I grew up too fast.

I was forced into growing up sooner than other kids. No child should have their innocence taken away - but mine was. I learned early on how to take care of myself, how to survive on my own, without guidance or reassurance.

I shouldn’t complain. It made me who I am. And whether I like it or not, I’m proud of how far I’ve come.

I learned how to be quiet. How to observe instead of ask. How to sit with my thoughts without letting them spill out.

Somewhere along the way, that became my ritual - keeping things inside, convincing myself I didn’t need anyone else to carry the weight with me.

People see me as strong. Grounded. They don’t see the nights when my mind won’t slow down, or the moments when I feel like I’m constantly catching up to a version of myself that already exists somewhere else.

I don’t remember the surgery, but I live with its echo. In the way I think. In the way I feel too deeply or not at all. In the way I’m always preparing for loss, even in moments of happiness.

Maybe that’s why I’ve always felt like this place isn’t where I’m meant to stay.

Like my life began here, but it isn’t supposed to end here.

Like my story was written wrong, and now I have to rewrite it in order to find my true self.