Good Grades--Diane

 

A quiet child he was. His life seems normal to him. That is until he realized it was not. He was a good child; almost perfect. He had good grades, paid attention in class, did what he was told, except he was quiet, passed off as shy, he was seemingly like a soldier. After all, he figured that as long as he was a good boy nothing bad would happen, he would in theory be left alone. A way for no one to ask questions or meddle in what wasn’t their business. He was innocent when he had this revelation however; the kind that would unbeknownst cover him in darkness. Fear and anxiety accumulated within him, but in his words just stress. After he found out, in those younger days, how broken his family was, he went often to friends and ate with them instead.

Who would ever suspect in a million years, that the shy good smart boy with new shoes started to dread the thought of the holidays and missed going to school. For him it was a lonely time, even his birthdays.
He did indeed have a celebration on his birthday week but when it came to the actual day, evening would come and he would spend it in his room in darkness. After all, his mother had left back to her house to be with her new boyfriend while his father was out being a drunkard. At these moments he would often think it would’ve been better if he wasn’t born.

But how could he, how ​dare​ he say that and ask for more. He had new shoes, a bed, a roof over his head, was well fed, smart, and got everything he asked for despite being “mid-low income”. So how dare he ask for more; however, that does not take away from the fact that he wanted a family more than material possessions.

It was easier to ask for a new drawing tablet instead of complaining about it. And so he sat drawing his sorrows away because after all he wasn’t in poverty, an orphan, in a 3rd world country, and he knew just how beautiful this earth is (he didn’t want to leave). A fool one would say, for not saying how the boy felt, ​no​, he is patient and headstrong.

One day he realized the darkness and how much fear was in him. The fear of hearing people yell, the fear of people fighting, the fear of having the doorknob of your room shook, the fear of being questioned, the fear of going with your mother, most of all the fear of being left alone.

He was anxious, scared, filled with sorrow and his way to alleviate it was, thank the gods, to delve in his studies, a straight A student, high GPA, honors and AP, with a helpful school lunch program, no room for anything else in an attempt to become a different breed than his family and un-associated...but not ​alone​. It failed.
He knew that if he didn’t change. things wouldn’t get better so he started to release his crying soul, to accept everything but the most he could do was move past it and have it locked in his mind because every time he saw a happy family he would be reminded, loneliness, and would break inside. Time, time was what he needed, time is what he got, he counted the years for his time to leave, after all that was his purpose for his grades, a university far away.

Then, one day suddenly, an epiphany, he grew up, learned things he didn't know, and came to terms with everything around him. He wasn’t as alone and he created himself to be and he found it, forgiveness, acceptance.

He is older now, at peace and happy with himself; unfortunately, his past trauma of loneliness and fear has not been so easily overcome. Yet he is okay with it. After all, everyone has their

own stories with a sorrowful plot and are entitled to feel a certain way because of it. This particular one just happened to be his, oppositely he now felt lucky once he started hearing the stories of others.
He would, now, in his newfound power do everything to prevent these situations from happening to another.