Control

Ever since I was born I was told that there are things that I just can't do and that there are things that I must do.
At first I took it as truth, believing that since I am younger than those who told me those things, they must know more about this world than I would. The thing is that I was suffering at the time, trying to fit in the society I was living in, wanting the most simple thing one can ask for, to belong. All through those years my parents didn't know that when they kept on saying: "This is just the way it is", meaning that some things can be done and some just can't, what I understood from this is that life was meant to be suffered through and that is just the way it is. That is what brought me to the point of killing myself.

When I was 16 years old I quit school and moved into an art school, which was meant for those same kids who just didn't fit the standard school, where we learned sketching, drawing, painting, photography and such, discovering different aspects and areas one can learn from and about. I thought I finally found a place where I can be freer and without obligating tasks, like those in the standard school where you get punished for not doing.
Couple of months after I started I flew to the United States for couple of weeks to join friends I've met in the previous summer for a reunion. I talked to the art school manager and got myself 3 weeks off, I organized everything which was needed, including the money for the whole trip, which I paid for and practically did everything by myself, something which to this day my mom tells about with wonder, I don't know how I did it, I just did. It filled me with a feeling that everything is possible, and flying to the states on my own, going through New York, Boston and Boltimore, some of the time on my own and some with friends was an amazing experience, one which changed my mindset for good, yet it was only when I came back that I realized it.

When I got back, I was told that I have 5 weeks to submit some works I hadn't submitted yet, and that if I won't I won't be allowed to go on with my studies.
That was the straw which broke the camel's back. Why on earth would anybody want to live like this? First to suffer so much and to do that only in order to do what other people tell me to do with the threat that if I won't I would be expelled and pushed away? Why even bother?
I was only 16 and a half, and realizing that I would have to go on living like this for 80-90 years sounded like asking to live in hell, why on earth would I do that to myself???

That brought me to the deepest brake down and depression I had ever experienced and the only 2 things which held me back from killing myself was the dilema of how should I do it (I thought it would be a nice experience to feel like I was flying before crushing down from a cliff and didn't know if it would be better than to find a pistol to make it nice and swift. Both options were available) and a good friend, who without even knowing about my situation, held me above water phone call after phone call.

Then it suddenly hit me, a thought just came out of nowhere: "Maybe nobody knows!! Maybe, just maybe, nobody knows it is possible to live in a different way. What if I would take my life and body, both I was about to give up on anyway, and see if whatever they are saying has any truth to it?"

Looking back at it today I realize that was the day I started taking myself out of other people's control and started gaining control of my own life.
Today I can say only this, to whomever would listen and want to hear, the choice is yours, the control of your own life is yours. It is not an easy choice, for it is much more comfortable to let other people tell us what to do, yet the benefit of the feeling that I can choose how to live my own life, that I can choose to walk away when I don't want something anymore, that I can choose if I want something at all, the benefit that I can choose how to feel about myself, whether to love and trust myself or to hate my own guts, that benefit alone, worth every second of hardship.

Take the control, take it easy at first, do one step at a time maybe, yet take control of your own life, for it is your choice, and avoiding making it is the greatest regret one can ever have.

Take it, it's yours.