What if I told you, we lie to each other every single minute of every day.  Not only do we lie to each other, we lie to ourself.

Why?

Why do we put so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect? Why do we let others make us do certain things or look a certain way? Why do we let society shape what the perfect person is?
Just why?

My name is Elena. I don’t think anyone needs to know what my last name is. After all, I am just a 15 year old girl that lives one life out of 7 other billion lives. What makes me important? What makes me different than anyone else?

Well, I’ll tell you. I’m not afraid to let people know my opinion. I don’t like when people let themselves be shaped by society.

But, I am even guilty of it. I act a certain way, to keep people from seeing the truth about me. I starve myself to look a certain way to make sure that the clothes I did fit in, start to fall off of me. I put so much pressure on myself to be perfect and to let my grades define who I am as a person.

Honestly, what even is PERFECT? Why did someone feel a need to create the word.

As you can see, I needed to rant to someone. And who better than to rant to a group of people who have gone through, are going through, or will go through all of these problems at some point. Don’t let yourself become so obsessed with being a certain way just to make others happy.

You know my name is Elena. But other than that, you don’t know much about me. I have a twin brother, Nick. He is older than I am, by 4 minutes. He plays ice hockey and will most likely be one of those kids that’s so great, but will have a career-ending injury in college. I hope that never happens to him, but honestly we all know how hard it is to be the best at a sport. Anyway, he is my rock. He is always there to hear me rant about anything and everything.

Luckily, it goes the same way. He rants to me about everything that bothers him.

But what if I told you, we lie to each other every single minute of every day.  Not only do we lie to each other, we lie to ourself.

It all started on a Tuesday in July. It was like any other day,

But it was different. I woke up screaming from having a nightmare. Just like every other night.

It was foggy out and I liked it. Loved it even. The fog is such a mysterious thing. It’s like walking through a dream and not even knowing it.

Well that day, at four in the morning, I decided that I didn’t like who I had become. So, I decided to leave.

I was opening my door, when my brother’s opened.

And this was when I told the first lie.

He asked where I was going and I said outside to get a breath of fresh air. He nodded and went back to bed.

Little, did he know that I was going outside to let myself drown in the misery I had created.

Everyone that knows me would be confused, asking what misery? Elena is the girl who’s always happy, the solid one in her friend group, does amazing in school, is the perfect daughter and sister.

The misery I am talking about are all of these events that had taken place in the last year. My friend committed suicide. My other friend moved to Sweden. I used all of my time to make sure that my life wars perfect.

But the worst part was my parents.  My parents started fighting about me. They were worried that I was becoming depressed and mentally ill. I started testing how long I could go without food. I started cutting myself. I became obsessed with the idea of getting myself into a hospital. My anixety started getting worse and my attacks were more frequent.  On top of that, in my free time I started to think up ideas on how I could die. All of these things led me to being miserable all the time.

The only good thing at that time, I was so good at acting as if I was fine, that no one knew anything was wrong. They all just assumed that I was having some mood issues. That I would get better soon.

But, I didn’t. Honesty, no one has even realized that it’s just gotten worse.

I’m failing math. I have panic attacks, but I don’t tell anyone. My peers expect me to do amazing on all of these tests and quizzes, when honestly I’m doing terrible. Life is so stressful. And honestly sometimes, I question if I really want to be part of it.

Anyway, that morning I was done. I just wanted the misery to take hold of me and make me sink to the bottom. I wanted to be rid of this life I had created. I wanted to be rid of the drama at school, the grades, the fake friends.I wanted to be rid of my entire life. I wanted to start over. So, I did.

But it didn’t happen the way I thought it would.

I had gone down to the train tracks. The train passed by every morning at 5:18. I sat there and waited. I kept waiting and waiting. I was focusing so much that I almost didn’t see it happening.

I almost didn’t see the man point a gun at the little boy’s head. The boy couldn’t have been more than 5. He was blond with brown eyes. It was obvious that someone wasn’t feeding him. His clothes hung off of him.

I watched in shock as the little boy stood there, standing confidently and looking at the man. The words he said then, I will always remember.

“I’m not scared. I’m only scared that I have failed my family in some way. But, they aren’t here and they don’t own or control me.”

That’s when the man shot the gun.

No one ever tells you, that the sound a gun makes can shatter an ear drum. No one tells you that when the sound is paired with the train rushing by, that it can cause any person to scream in shock.

Except, the boy was still standing. The man was standing. And the train was rushing by.

I looked up at the sky. The sun was just starting to rise up. The yellow was slowly becoming red.

But, it was when I felt a dripping feeling going down my forehead that I realized something was wrong.

Before I could figure it out, everything went black.