Prologue - Gaelyn Thomas
I wasn’t always broken, at one point in time, I had considered myself normal. Tragedy has a way of taking a whole person and tearing him down until he was nothing. I suppose I could have done something to stop my progression into darkness, I could have gotten help with my depression, found a therapist to listen to my issues. Something about that just didn’t seem right, why pay someone to listen to you when there were other ways to work through your grief? Obviously my own way hasn’t helped me in the slightest. In fact if anything it made everything worse. I no longer cared if I woke up to see the next sunrise.
I used to enjoy writing, I would write for hours, tales in space much like star wars but it was my own. I loved adding depth to each character, to see them through the trials that eventually made them stronger, that made them better than what they had been at the start of each story.
My little sister used to love reading my stories, because she had just as much of a sense of adventure as I had back then. I used to love watching her face lite up, or frown when the characters found themselves in a serious situation. This was before everything had changed; now it was like my writing voice had been silenced. Whenever I sat down to try to write, it was like my head was a blank sheet of paper whereas before it had been filled with words begging to be written. That had changed within a blink of an eye. Now, I can’t seem to write one hundred words. Writers block seemed like it was here to stay permanently, of course it was at this point in my life that I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue with my writing anyways. It was just a hobby, a way to get me through a day, or two. A way to help pass the time when I didn’t want to be in anyone’s presence. Now a few years later I still wasn’t a big fan of being around people, preferring my own company to others, and I couldn’t write a single word. I now had to find something else to help time pass.
It was amazing how in the blink of an eye, how tragedy could change everything at once. Some days I wondered about suicide but then I decided that was the coward’s way out that I was stronger than my depression. There were days though that I felt like my depression was stronger than me, and wondered how I would get through the next week, much less the next day. Something though kept me going, I didn’t understand why but every time I thought about killing myself. I somehow found the strength to put the gun aside. I somehow always managed to find enough hope to get me through. Then there are moments where I wonder if I even deserve life because it seems like I’ve messed up at every turn, I’ve burned every relationship I’ve ever had with people; including my parents. I don’t if they just didn’t understand my battle with depression or what, but they told me to grow up and get over it. Like depression was just something you could get over, overnight. Needless to say I didn’t talk to them much. Tragedy changed a loving family, into a family that didn’t appear to even care about one another anymore. It’s said that people deal with grief in different ways, and that’s exactly what my family did, and it tore us apart. This is my story through tragedy and finding love when I thought I least deserved it.