On Monday I was born. My little blue face screaming up at the doctors in the operating room. Watching them unwrap the slippery rope form my neck; one, two, three. I was a premature baby by a month, but it I was born a minute later, I would have died. Life and death, two opposites, so excruciatingly close. I ended up on the right side.

On Tuesday I was two, and I was in a whirlwind. My life was a whirlwind. My parents were building the house, and I never slept in the same place twice. I talked every chance I had, narrating stories in the backseat of the land rover as my Dad went to the hardware store to pick up more concrete and nails. I can see him smiling at me in the rear view mirror. I was happy, but I lived everywhere but my home. Then I stopped talking.

On Wednesday I dad the stutter. My whole world was the stutter. Even a four-year-old can understand a black and hopeless world if they are thrust into it. My entry into the public school system only proceeded to scrape the skin of and angel who's skin had beaver been damaged. The blood and bruises inflicted by my peers have to this day only faded. The are still very much a part of me.

On Thursday I was six, and very much a writer. My first novel blossomed out of the first grade, a creation that I titled The Giant Bean. Of course, my first grade spelling skills being what they were, the work actually read The Gint Been.Almost every word was spelled wrong, and the storyline was less that exemplary and mostly repetitive, but I could have cared less at the time. This was MINE. The first tangible proof that someone wad to take me seriously. That person turned out to be my mom, who photocopied the story and distributed it to all my friends. I was convinced I had produced a Pulitzer.

On Friday, I was fourteen. The past seven years of school had sent my writerly mind deep into the depths of despair. I had received so many mixed messages on my writing that I didn't know who to believe. It seemed as if people either loved my writing or hated it. Then, there was a beacon of hope. My eighth grade English teacher. Here was someone who actually knew how to write-- and she loved me! She went as far as to call my writing "brilliant." She rebuilt my confidence in my won voice and nurtured it into something that demanded attention. She made my writing into something real.

On Saturday, I was forecasting for my next year's classes, but this time the stakes were high. Apparently I could win or lose my entire life in one stroke. I was crumbling under the pressure of the woman who used to be my hero. No longer. I finally snapped. Shouting at her seemed the only way to make it clear whose life it was that she was controlling.

On Sunday, I was done. Broken. Crushed. Nothing seemed as if it would ever become favorable to me agin. Then, a ray of light peeked his way out of the thick black clouds. Justin. He came into my life right when I needed him. He is my rock/water/light/salvation/teddy bear. Also coming from a past he would rather forget, he made me realize what love is. It's not just loving him romantically, (though I feel sometimes as if I could be with him forever), It's loving myself and accepting everything that I deem "wrong" about myself. He kissed every aching, bleeding rip in my heart and helped it start to heal. He loves me for every imperfection, and I love him for all of his.