Just Give Me a Reason
2015; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 8; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/thr.2015.0079
ISSN1939-9774
Autores Tópico(s)Nursing Education, Practice, and Leadership
ResumoJust Give Me a Reason Lauren Altus (bio) I’m so tired. It’s very tiring, you know. This whole being alive thing. Except I don’t really feel alive. I’m not really living, just existing. Just going through the motions. I’m taking it day-by-day, but I’m not really sure what I’m waiting for. There’s always something: the weekend, the summer, the New Year. But even when they come around, they’re never as good as I hoped, and I find myself waiting even more. I guess I’ve come to hate the present. I don’t know why, but I do. All day I can’t wait to go to sleep and all night I just want to wake up. I wish I was a kid again, but I just want to finish growing up. I read this quote once, and it said, “Those who live in the past are depressed, those who live in the future are anxious, those who live in the present are at peace.” I realized then that I was somehow living in both the past and the future, but not the present. And that’s why I’m writing this letter. I realized the one thing I’ve been waiting for this whole time, the one way I can finally be at peace. I promise, Emmy, this has nothing to do with you. I know that you need me and that I’m being selfish. But I also know that I can’t do this anymore. I just didn’t want you to spend the rest of your life wondering why. So now you have it: my very last thoughts, my exact reasons. I’m not bitter, I’m not mad. I love you. I’m sorry. —Erica Emily That is just like her. She was always the kind of person who thought a beautiful card made up for a terrible gift. As if I really care why she did it. She left me, and she did it on purpose. She was the only person who got it. How hard it was to live in our house. Well, it’s even quieter now [End Page 500] without her, and I know she doesn’t even care. Dad was a mess for the exact amount of time that is appropriate, and then it was business as usual. I haven’t seen Mom since she found her. People keep coming over and bringing food and crying. Dad told everyone it was some weird medical condition. God forbid the world knows what really happened. Everyone keeps telling me it’ll be okay, and that I’ll get through it. But that just reminds me of Erica and her letter. I didn’t show it to anyone because she is the only person I would talk to about stuff like this. I never really got how she felt until now. I’m sick of being hurt and feeling broken. I’m sick of getting through it, just like she is. I wish everyone would shut up. She’s not resting; she’s not at peace. She’s just gone. She’s gone, and she left me here to deal with it all by myself. Everyone says she was special and that God needed an angel. No one understands how she felt or what she was going through, not even me. She was my hero. She was better than this, and now she’s done the worst possible thing she could ever do. I guess it’s just Dad and me until Mom gets back. Jim Of course I’m upset, why wouldn’t I be? Look at all the pain my family and I have been through. Maria checked herself in somewhere; if it’s a spa or institution I have no idea. Emily’s barely left her room. She was the only normal one in this family. Not weak like her mother and sister. She was the athlete; she was going to get a scholarship. Not like Erica, so mopey, always sketching or reading or something. It’s not good for a child to separate herself from the rest of...
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