The most important week of the year had snuck up on me once again. My final opportunity to put my hard work and dedication to use had come. I had been trying to make the Mukwonago Varsity Dance Team since freshman year. I wanted so badly to have my moment as a senior on a team that my peers actually cared about. However, what I did not know is that May 23rd, the first day of tryouts, would easily be the worst day of my life. I returned home from a stressful day of school and tryouts and began to practice the routines I had learned right away. Later that night, my father stopped by my mother’s apartment to check on her since we had not heard from her all day. As it turned out, my mother had taken her own life as a result of her lifelong depression.
By the time I got home, my brother had already arrived and was enthusiastically recounting the day’s events to my mom, who had obviously been crying. When he finally stopped carrying on, my mom told me to sit down and then she told me. I will never forget her exact words or even the way she said them. “Megan committed suicide today.” I stared blankly at her, I knew she had to be lying, she had to be wrong, Megan would never do that. We had been too good of friends for too long, I knew her too well. Megan was always happy, she always had a joke to tell. She had such a bright future, she was an excellent athlete and it seemed as though she succeeded in everything she tried.
Sitting outside of a Starbucks cafe, listening to the hustle and bustle of the city, both my mother and I are deep in our own thoughts. I am reading a novel while LaToya is editing her resume. I suddenly lean over and ask her why she didn’t completely give up on everything after her mother died. She glances over at me, with a faraway look in her eyes and says “Nothing but death can keep me from my prosperity.”
My days began with going to the gym early in the mornings and going to the park to practice my batting swings and catches in the evening. I even managed to save up some allowance money to spend on the high school’s softball summer camps. However, my time fell short, and the day of the infamous tryouts had begun. My rambling thoughts were running bases through my head. How will I try out in front of hundreds of other girls? Will they laugh at me? Would I even make it? Will my friends make it? While my anxiety got the better of me, the head coach yelled out my name, and I slowly and steadily walked up to the batting box, and got ready for the pitcher to toss a fastball at me. Time slowed down as I anticipated the pitch; my fingers almost lost the grip on my bat waiting, but then, I saw the softball coming my way. I took a deep breath, and I hit it as hard and as fast as I could; it made it all the way to the outfield. I stood there shocked that I could do that, grinned ear to ear, and did a little happy dance on my way back to the line. My friends were celebrating and came up to high-five me when I got to the end of the line, and the varsity first basemen, a celebrity in my eyes, came up and complimented me on how far I hit the softball. A varsity member had spoken to me.
After I was saved, Makayla offered to take me to church with her every Sunday I would want to go, but about a year later on the May of our junior year, Makayla tragically passed away in a car accident. During this time, my grades were dropping, I was cutting with a razor to release my pain of losing her. I started to get mad at God for taking her away from me. My depression was at an all-time high and it was just so difficult to deal with that one day, I opened my medicine cabinet, grabbed a bunch of pills, stuffed it under my shirt, gave my mother a hug acting like everything was normal, and then I overdosed in the bed of my room. The catch is, I woke up with my mother by my side in a hospital.
I was a seventh grader when I attempted suicide because my life didn’t make sense. My mom, little brother and little sister were in Mexico for the cause that my grandmother was about to die so my mom had to leave. They were gone for
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