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Adolescent Experience
Phase One – Disorientation
She was alone and lonely. Though her life had suddenly shot upward, she felt like it was all spiraling down. Thrashing along the fall until, suddenly, it hit rock bottom, shattering in to a million unfixable pieces. Her life was a wreck of broken glass. All she saw – all she felt – was gray. Day in and day out, she put on a show. She smiled and laughed, while on the inside she felt empty. Nothingness. She was an emotionless void. Nothing pleased her yet very little displeased her. She was a mess of atoms, a dead weight.
She lived, but didn’t exist.
She existed, but didn’t live.
Phase Two – Confusion
She grew. She learned to no longer find the shrieking of gray alarming. She figured out how to make the noise die down, sometimes by simply ignoring it and other times by learning how to deal with it. How to live with it. Is this what life is supposed to be like? She’d ask herself. But this time, she actually wanted to know. And she searched for the determination to find that answer. She searched for purpose.
Phase Three – Clarity
She’d grown. She no longer saw people as a threat, but rather as companions on this journey that she was thrown in and was still trying to navigate her way through. She didn’t let herself hide away anymore, nor did she allow herself to be exposed. Finding a balance between the two, she learned, was crucial. It’s what would keep her stitched. She embraced the beauty of chaos and welcomed the peace of calm. She began her days by greeting Curiosity and letting it guide her. She grew to believe that people were inherently good. She found relief in simplicity. In beauty overlooked.
She hadn’t found herself quite yet, but she didn’t worry. She was paving a path to figuring it all out.
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