"You Can't Let Other People Define You."

I wrote and couldn't stop writing. I scribbled about who I met and described them for hours. It was like reliving the whole thing without reliving it, and getting a chance to finally laugh at what I went through. It was my favorite thing I've ever written, I think. It felt like I was doing the thing I was supposed to be doing. It was so hard and when I finally found the right words, it felt like I was breathing after not breathing for so long, like I was taking the air inside of the deepest parts of me and finally feeling it rush through my body. Yeah, it was like I was breathing again. Writing helped me find a home in the life I had returned to, in the strangeness of how it felt to be back again. I showed it to mom and with every laugh that escaped her mouth, I wanted to write more and more. But I was writing it for me and it felt more right than writing's ever felt. Or maybe it didn't and I'm just making it something it never was. Its so easy to do that with memory.

I miss you more than ever right now even though you're still around. It sort of feels like you're already gone, or that you belong to someone else now. But its good. Its okay. I'm going to be okay.

My life is too much to talk about, too much to try and throw a net on and contain in any kind of words right now. Its terrifying. When someone asks me a question about my "future plans", a part of me turns and walks away and the rest is left staring into their eyes, wondering what the answer is. My voice always shakes when I deliver my answer.
Dad says, "You can't let other people define you."