When I was a child, I would pick up every rock and piece of trash and give it a name. Even the microscopic germs on my face had names. I learned about them in school.

Time passes quickly and my rabbit dies, and even after a seance, I could not bring him back. In this moment I understood that life was not limitless. I could die at any time and then what? Who would have something to say about a five-year-old? I had done nothing truly notable yet.

I have still yet to do anything traditionally or particularly notable, but my concept of a fulfilling life has strayed from the stardom I imagined as a child.

When you are a little baby, you are the center of the world. It is a survival instinct, a symptom of evolution. Then, one day, you learn that you are actually a tiny speck in the universe and nobody knows you. When this happened to me, I was reading an encyclopedia about space.

"You are here" *insert tiny speck* and I thought, "if that's the whole Earth, how tiny am I?"

I was a teenager when the novelty of being a tiny speck wore off,

I had no control over my life, I was a tiny speck in the sense that no one cared or knew me. Things were bad. I had a painful illness that lasted years, was addicted to whatever my little hands could grab, and my only stable home was curling into a ball on a bathroom floor throwing up etc. etc. etc. I knew that I would 1. have to start my own life or 2. try to exit life all together (again).

Luckily, gratefully, and anti-climatically, I went to college early instead of meeting my untimely demise. Starting over for the first time in my life felt like shooting through a narrow tube with a beautiful light at the end. There were shapes, colors, and experiences that I had never imagined. My little hands still grabbed at every indulgence that I could find, but there was something or maybe several someones looking out for me. I found sanctuary in a small college town.

When I was 20 I fell in love. I had had lovers before, but this was different. We were friends, we were lovers, two puzzle pieces that nearly fit together, different and the same. It started so well, or I choose to remember it that way, or I can't remember because it was so long ago. I remember making violet syrup, I remember the way that they danced in the front row of shows, I remember the songs that we would play for each other, I remember a beautiful love.

I don't know if they changed or if it was all an act that they were struggling to maintain but they had a temper that only got progressively worse. I remember them ripping their jeans out of my hand that I had "washed wrong," yelling that they hate me then pretending that they never said that. I remember when I had pneumonia, I was really sick, they said that they were going to go pick something up and would be back in an hour. In a few hours their phone was dead and they came home the next day covered in hickeys. I remember things that are so horrible that I don't even want to write them and I remember them saying, "don't tell anybody about the way I treat you or I'll kill myself."

I felt like all of the air had been sucked out of our shared apartment and that my only purpose was to be a ghost that absorbed all of their negative thoughts, feelings, and anger.

I hated the person that I was in that relationship and they blamed me for all of their faults and our faults. My backbone had gone as soft as jello until one day it snapped back. We are D. O. N. E. Done. I said and I locked the bedroom door. I gathered my things while they banged and banged screaming and kicking.

I was 24 when I learned that all you need to survive is a key. I had been ultimately locked out of my home, but I had a few of my things and I had my car. I could have gone to a friend's house, but it was 3 am and everyone was asleep. Fold down the back seats, crack open the windows, and cry yourself to sleep. I spent a few days in my car, a few days on a couch of someone who wanted to fuck me, and eventually begged a new landlord to let me move in early. Awkwardly for both of us, I told him the whole story.

It was a confusing time. They texted me a lot, I texted back at first, I called them drunkenly once, they called me a pathetic loser, but kept texting me that they loved me. They kept finding things for me pick up from our old apartment. I cut off all contact.

I have since learned to live with confusion. Sometimes I hear a song or go somewhere that reminds me of them, the happy, kind, cool version of them that I knew in college. I'm not sure if that person I knew was ever a real person but, nevertheless, I let those thoughts slide through me like leaves down a river.

I think that my backbone is made out of concrete now and I'm grateful four that. I have some really great friends, some old, some new. We hang out, do all sorts of things together, and love each other. I'm finishing my Master's degree that I started in 2022 so that I can be a better teacher and eventually be a child psychologist.

I have serious boyfriend now and I'm really happy. He treats me really well, exceptionally well, better than any boyfriend to ever exist. And he's genuine and he knows what he wants and we want the same things. He's a doctor and the kind of doctor that really helps people.

I live in community with many people across Saint Louis in many different ways. They are a large part of the 1000 million things I'm grateful four.