Change, but…

They said she was ill. - Ill? What’s the deal, Annie thought. She was only 5. She spoke to angels, told them, “I want to be healthy… I want to be free.” They said, “Not yet. This is not for nothing. It has a meaning. Everything’s going to be alright.”

She thought that life was mean. That she’ll never be healthy, that she׳d never heal. That everything’s black, bleak, dark, casting a shadow to her once rosy life. She did not know where she stood. She didn’t know where life would take her. And it will… doesn’t it always?

Annie was throwing up almost constantly. One time, she threw up on her school’s sink, at the bathroom, and her classmates stared at her. Though she said: “what’s wrong?” They were stunned. Perhaps disgusted. Annie didn’t notice, really.

She had her head in the clouds. She wasn’t aware, sometimes, how people perceived her. She was a happy child, but also, a sad one. Calm, but angry. For a good reason, though. Her parents started to leave her outside the door of the family’s house, whenever they got annoyed of treating her illness.

She was annoying on purpose; she sought attention, love and warmth, because she didn’t receive those things in the way she needed. She felt abandoned; like she didn’t fully belong. Misunderstood; that people don’t see her pain.

It felt like too much. She was still so young; and yet so hurt… People were always treating her like she was an angel, but when she hit another child - all of a sudden, she was the problem child. Her heart was stabbed with guilt.

She was in enormous pain: the constant puking (one time she puked on a horse; fun). “Seeing stars” (feeling dizzy, lightheaded, blurry vision). Also, she wanted to faint so that people will actually see her, take care of her, care about her. But that never happened.

She was really scared. This illness had struck Annie deeply. I mean, there are worse illnesses. But Annie was super sensitive, beautifully caring. And she didn’t know why she deserved this. She really didn’t. I mean, she was just a child! What is this world?

Years pass by. Annie is a teenager. She’s depressed. She’s alone. She doesn’t know how to maintain friendships in a strong, consistent way. But her physical illness is gone. Though her mental illness is strong. She screams to the angels, “you said it’s for a good cauuuuuse! My parents are always fighting, I’m depressed. Where are youuuuu!”

But through her hermitageness she revealed strength. Independence. Autonomy. She realized how lush her inner world is, how brimming with life, pulsing with creativity.

Annie developed her calming hobbies. She was measuring drops of essential oils to make perfumes, threading each bead of beautiful beaded jewelery - individually, completing diamond paintings one, after another, after another, after another...

She developed her passions. She grew a resilient heart. She waited. She grew online communities. There were communities where she stayed longer, some for a briefer time. But all of those people kept a warm corner in her heart. They were part of her.

She was anxious that the people she left would be furious at her, disheartened. She was haunted by those feelings. But she couldn’t have given any more to them. She had given them her heart.

Though Annie succeeded, she was missing something. She felt like her soul was missing. That she was fake. She felt empty, strung out. She still felt abandoned. That everyone from her high school and people she grew up with had moved on, brought children to the world, got married, were happy.

She was nearing 30. She has accomplished so much, but so much was missing. Annie felt trapped, saddened, grieving. Grieving her lost years. Her childhood illness. Her teenage mental illness that deepened. Her drifting in the world and watching the days pass like rich people’s rapidly growing incomes.

Annie felt isolated. Less misunderstood, but repressed in real life. Less angry, but more angry. Exhausted. Misplaced. Traumatized… she asked the angels again, “Where is that freedom? How come ‘everything’s alright?!’ It isn’t!” They said, “stop with-“ and then she woke up from that dream, of her demanding the angels for more. And her life was still a question mark.