text: Pain is a funny thing. One day it is so consuming you cannot breath, cannot function. Everything is fuzzy, low hums replace words. Your body goes on auto pilot and hours pass and you wonder how you got through the day. No one bats an eye lid because you smile and joke, you say all the right things and you body gives no indication of the decay that is happening inside. Before you know it you are alone in your room. Homework has been done, dinner has been eaten. You sit next to your Dad, watching the new episode of some crime drama while practicing the knitting stitches your mom taught you. In your room you are finally free to feel all the pain that has been built up. Sigh a relief that the pretending is over and the tears start to fall down your face. They are fat tears that tickle your face as they roll down. The salty taste upsets your stomach which sets off more tears. Betrayal, you have no right to dislike the tears as it is all your fault for them in the first place. Your mind wonders, how did you get here again? You cannot tell your parents because they thought that this was taken care of. 3 nights a week going to group therapy, to talk to a safe adult and like teens who have been through the same thing. Even though your mom said she wanted you better, her sighs when she realises that she needs to drive you again. The low talking to herself about how she will pass the two hours. How she cannot go to her book club for the time being because she needs to sit in the waiting room judging the other parents. It is obvious why their kids are messed up, but didn’t your father and I give you everything you needed? Did the family vacations and cello lessons mess you up? The summers spent on your Great Grandpa’s dairy farm running care free some how make you funny? We don’t understand where this came from Doctor, she has never shown any signs of being sad. Is it chemical imbalance? I cannot see how Doctor, we only eat organic. No unhealthy food is allowed in my house. Sometimes it isn’t even the talking, its the looks. How the family will go silent when you enter the room. Odd eye contact passes between the other people in the room. The fake dusty flowers that have been there forever suddenly become the high light of the room. Look how they arrange, they really bring the room together. Even though they are fake can’t you smell the fresh roses? Oh Grandma, the arrangement of roses and lilies really were a good choice. What? Grandpa got them for you for your 10th wedding anniversary? But they still look new! Yes, they are a good reminder that even when things are bad, you can always top and smell the fake flowers haha. Then all eyes fall on you. A good reminder that even when you are sad, stop and smell the fake flowers your great grandpa bought for $1.75 back in 1945. The over excited ‘Well look who it is! Aren’t you getting big and beautiful! Your puppy fat is finally going haha must be the volleyball.’ All done with good intentions but the tone shows it is forced. No one knows how to talk to a sad person. No one thinks that just saying ‘I’m here for you’ is ever good enough. But it is good enough. You don’t need advice, advice on how to wear your hair, grow it out honey you don’t want people to think you like girls. Really black lipstick, do we need to talk to your youth pastor? I’d buy her something pink but her body may burst into flames if she wears anything other than black haha. Your mind is racing. How do you stop the tears? How do you stop the pain? What did the safe adult say? Write it down? You should write it down but you can’t anymore. Mom found your journal and said that it was appropriate for you to have such bad thoughts. Dad tried, he said maybe it was good for you to write it out so you don’t hold it in, but he lost just as much as you did. Absolutely not, she needs to think better, she needs to see all we do for her and be grateful. Dad half smiled at you, he understood what you were going through. He said the safe adult recommended a journal, but mom still threw it in the fire place. You should have gotten sad in the spring, low chance of the fire place being on. Think of something funny. The time you were on the farm and you got your boot stuck in the mud. You couldn’t stop laughing as you stood there like a flamingo on one leg, waiting for your dad to come and rescue you. He kept telling you to just walk over, we will change your sock but you refused, wet and dirty socks were the worst! He was laughing and upset at the same time. He came and plucked you up but then he got his foot stuck in the mud and you both fell over. The laughter that rang through out the farm. He asked you if you preferred to be fully covered in mud or just your one sock, and to your surprise you lifted up your bootless foot and told him your sock was still clean. The two of you spent a good five minutes laughing and your clean sock. Afterwords you both decided the only way to get fully clean was to jump into the man made lake that was on your great grandpas farm. You both ran on the dock and just jumped in fully clothed. You splashed and laughed as the ducks swam around you. You floated on your backs and cloud gazed. Finally your mom came out and told you both to get inside and get properly clean. She scolded your dad for allowing you to get filthy and proper girls didn’t role around the in the mud and then jump in a lake for a bath. This wasn’t the early 1900s anymore, we have hot water for a reason. A knock on the door, a quiet hey you still awake? Oh hey dad, give me a minute. Why are you crying honey? Its ok, I’m here, move over let me sit on the bed with you. Dad I’m sorry I have been such a burden lately. What? No not at all, whatever it takes to get you better. But I don’t know what makes me so sad all the time. Then we keep trying to find it out. But mom is losing patience. Mom grew up differently, idle hands are the devils play thing, more work less time for day dreaming. Maybe a part time job would help me? Make some new friends, some money for myself. For more black cloths haha. Dad, it isn’t black it is a dark gray haha. Whatever you want to do honey, but do it for you, not for your mom or me. Dad does mom hate me? What? No of corse not, she just hates that she cannot control your mind. She knows what she needs to do to make herself happy but when it comes to you she is at a lost. I try to make her think what she wants for me is helping, but it isn’t. I know sweetheart, but don’t worry we will figure it out. Dad, I’m so sorry. Oh honey, come here, cry it out if it will help. The only thing that could be heard are the sound of your tears. Finally someone says they are here for you. No advice, no pointers, no sly remarks. Just someone fully there for you unconditionally.