Escape Blog #1

       It was April 20th, 2013. Everything seemed normal. I got up, got dressed, went to school, discussed the upcoming prom with my best friends. Everything seemed like a normal happy day. Little did I know almost every ounce of happiness i had was about to be sucked away with two simple words: " He's Dead". Death is something we all know will happen but don't want to think about. The death of my Uncle Larry shouldn't have been a surprise. He had been in that hospital for 2 years, couldn't move the left side of his body, and had 3 heart attacks already that year. I really do not know why it was such a shock when he died. But it shattered my world. No one could have predicted how much his death had crushed me. After recovering from the shock and total denial of his death, I was drained. All my energy was gone. My grades started to slip. I was sleep-walking through life. Every bit of happiness I would feel was gone in a heartbeat. Slowly I descended into the darkness of depression. The weight of guilt pulling me down deeper into the darkness. The voices inside my head would taunt me for hours with " You forgot about him. You forgot your dying uncle. You let him sit in that hospital and forgot about him." and they would laugh as I cried till my tears ran dry. I sat there, alone, in the darkness. waiting for some light or way out. I wanted to escape, to escape from life. There were times when I started packing a suitcase. I was going to just hop in my car and drive until i ran out of road or hit the ocean. But I could never bring myself to it. I found my escape somewhere else. Somewhere in the white space between the black lines of those bound pages, I discovered a sanctuary. I found my escape in books. I had always loved to read, but now I was reading to escape my life. I read to leave everything behind and become someone else for a few hours. It was soothing and calming. I would actually smile and laugh. I started to feel happy again. My soul was filled with a new life that was filled with the words of authors. Books became my candle in the darkness. The words filled my life with warmth and joy. Soon, I found the staircase out of the darkness. I started to climb and made my way back up to the warmth of sunshine and found joy in life again.