My alarm goes off. I slowly wake from the box of nothing where I don’t have to think about anything. My get away. Thoughts jumble and overtake my mind as I remember that today is another day. Just another day where nothing mattered.

When I looked into the the mirror, there stood a reflection of me, but just stood the body. I felt too many strange emotions to even recognize it as myself.

The thought of transforming into nothing had crossed my mind. What if nothing meant no pain? No worries. No emotions. No one would have to worry about me worrying, and even better I wouldn't have to worry about myself. It would simply just be nothing. I used to ask myself, “Why can’t I be happy if everyone else gets to?” There never seemed to be an answer that I could give myself. All I needed was the reassurance of my own self to know that everything would be okay. Everything will get better, but I just couldn't seem to find that answer.

I continued to get myself ready and make my way downstairs where I found my dad making breakfast. He set two pieces of dry toast in front of me hoping that I would eat today. I would go days without eating with exceptions of a few crackers and juice in the Guidance office. It wasn't the fact that I was forcing myself to not eat, but I just didn't seem to have the motivation to eat anything, or even do anything.
I finally decided on eating half a piece of toast on the car ride to school. The taste of bland crunchy grains didn't spark anything inside of me. It tasted like nothing and it meant nothing just like everything else in my life.
I somehow managed to get myself out of the small car and into the building… or as I had thought of it as, jail. School and jail didn't seem to have a difference. Everything about it reminded me and gave me the same pain of being inside a jail cell. Being forced into a building for the entire day with no way to leave unless your parents came and bailed you out somehow reminded me of a jail.
I follow my normal routine and reach the nurses office for my medication. 25 mg of Celexa every morning. After I received and swallowed my capsule of ‘money down the drain meds that don't seem to work their magic’, I walk down to the guidance office which had become a second classroom for me. I open the door to Mrs.Brown’s small office and she motions for me to have a seat. I sit down in the usual uncomfortable blue fold out chair and notice the warm tears running down the side of my face.
Being in this school or being anywhere out made me feel so nervous, anxious and alone about everything in life. I thought back to the previous week where I had been admitted into the hospital for God knows what. My parents said I needed ‘professional’ help but I think that that word is overrated. All these ‘professional’ people seemed to do was ask me a long list of questions and reply with “mhmm” to every answer I gave them. The question that I can still remember today was, “Have/would you physically hurt or have attempted to put yourself in danger?” I remember thinking in the back of my mind, “Yes. Yes. Yes.”, but the only thing that I was able to tell them was “No.”
The fact that I had answered yes and became honest with myself scared me. And it scared me a lot. I wasnt normal. The only thing I could think about is why. Why was this happening to me. But then I realized, this wasn't happening to me… I was letting this happen to me. My life had turned into a giant walking soap opera. Everything that didn’t matter in life, I turned into a big deal. I was the one choosing not to be happy. The only person to blame was myself.
I remember the day before this watching a YouTube video about life decisions. The guy was talking about the choice to be happy. You have the choice to be happy and you have the choice to live your life the way you want to live it. I hadn’t thought much of this video until now when I realized that this was the problem. I wasn’t choosing the choice to be happy and that what was making me feel this way.
Of course my life didn’t completly change in matter of seconds and everything was suddenly normal. I still don’t know what normal is. But what did seem to change was my perspective on life and I truly believe that has changed my life. I finally started living life. And this time, I was living life the right way. I had to remind myself a lot that one day I will be nothing and nothing will matter but for the time being, why not make it worth wild. Why not just be happy? Why should I be worrying about everything when one day it won’t matter? Why not just live an easy happy life? Everything from that moment on has been different and will continue to change for the rest of my life.
Still sitting in Mrs. Brown’s office, I decided to do something with my life and I decided to start now. I asked her if I could go to class and the smile that appeared on her face said a lot more than she could know. That smile she gave me, it reassured me. It was almost like a signal that she knew one day everything would get better, we all just had to wait and that’s what we did. We waited and waited and waited until that moment happened.
It’s crazy how one small video changed my life for forever. The guy who made the video, seemed so normal. No, not normal. Happy. He knew how to be happy and how to live his life to the fullest.
I went home from school that day and went back onto his YouTube channel. That entire night I spent watching his videos. They were so genuine and there was something about him that I just couldn’t figure out. I couldn’t understand how he came up with the logic to choose to be happy. I know it seems so easy to figure out, but it had only just hit me that this was so true.
Last summer, I flew out from JFK all the way to LAX. While I was in California, I met the guy on YouTube. Except he wasn’t just a guy. I can’t explain to anyone or even to him how much a small 3 second video clip off of YouTube changed my life, and I don’t think I will ever be able to comprehend it myself but for now, I’m just going to go with it and live. Yeah.. I think living sounds good.