Caution: possible suicide and self harm trigger

While most people would say "seeng red" in a figurative form, I tend to say it quite literally. For example, seeing the red lips of the woman I love...or watching the occasional drops of blood fall from my hands...or looking at a person's red eyes, unsure of what color eyes they actually have. This is how I see red. Although anger is not exactly a foreign concept to me, I've learned to keep it inside me and embrace the happiness that surrounds me. To me, red is a neutral color. It's dark and light at the same time, just like me. It's all in how people perceive what they're looking at. Just like when I noticed the boy in the red hat...It seemed as though he followed me everywhere. Until our destinations and futures became clear as different. He was just a simple boy in a red hat, yet he stood out to me. I wish I could've gotten to know him better, but I'll probably never see him again. Hopefully I'll never forget the last time I saw him...I had exhaled deeply and blinked slowly as I caught my final and wishfully infinite glimpse of that boy in the red hat. I have always been questioning who I am since that day. The feeling that I felt for the boy in the red hat disappeared the instant he was gone. Instead, I felt something for the girl who sat next to me. And it only grew stronger as I saw the other girls I was friends with. Everything about who I was started to change that day, only it wasn't change. I was realizing who I actually was. It started with realizing that I truly didn't have a favorite color. I was too accepting. But I did have a lucky color: orange. Orange like a sunset, orange like a spring flower, orange like a perfectly ripe fruit. It followed my everywhere and, even though I hated the color itself, I learned to love its true beauty. From then on I started embracing who I was. I started feeling like I could be myself around anyone, however I learned the hard way that not everyone is as accepting as I was. My life went from a beautiful, radiant, orange sunset to a yellow, sour, lemony mess. This yellow, sour, lemony mess suddenly was what I was living in. The mess started when I became distant within my family. I realized over time that I was the odd one out, and that I would never fit in among the ones I love the most, even though I was related to them by blood. Next came the trust issues. I couldn't trust anyone and I started pushing people away. I was trying to convince myself that I wasn't my past, but that was all that consumed my thoughts. Eventually untrustworthy people didn't surprise me. Loyal people did. Finally, I reached the last straw. I fell in love. I know what you're thinking; "love is supposed to be happy and not the last straw of your life falling apart!" And you're right. Love is supposed to be refreshing, like freshly mown green grass on a summer day, or like a perfectly crisp green apple: sour and sweet at the same time, or like when mouthwash or toothpaste give your mouth the perfect green, minty freshness it craves. But not for me. The love I fell into was not mutual, and it was obsessive love. Love is the best and worst thing that can ever happen to a person. This love wasn't good and I knew it would end up breaking my heart. And it did. It drove me into madness because I knew I would never be loved back. He didn't even talk to me anymore and nostalgia consumed me. Eventually he spoke to me, but it wasn't the words I wanted to hear. He turned love into hate and he turned hate into a battle within myself without doing anything wrong, and that was when I hit rock bottom. Long hard nights of crystal tears with a reflection of blue bruises running down my face. The shoes hitting my arms over and over, turning them red and blue and purple. Nights of laying on the floor and thinking I wasn't worth it. The misery of blue was rock bottom. Eventually it all came to an end. I wanted everything to be over. I knew that I would be the cause of my destruction in the end...the pillow was right there...I set it over my face and let out a breath of carbon dioxide, thinking it was my last. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that my dad was making chicken wings and they would be done very soon. You're probably laughing at this, but take a moment to this about what saved me from taking my life. It was not my friends. Not my family. Not my crush. Not my pet. Not my passion for the things I love. It was my guilty pleasure that saved me. But little did I know that soon my friends and family and crush, etc would be the reason for my salvation. A dark time of blue faded into a slightly less dark and happier purple. Purple is the color of bruises and fear. And from that day on I didn't have fear in myself. I told my closest friends what had happened and they convinced me to never do it again. I swore that I wouldn't. And I intended to keep that promise. However I'm diving into another story here, one that changed my whole life:
I had always been afraid of being killed. So I prayed every night that God would protect me. However one night, I asked for him to tell me my place in the world. I didn't know who I was or what I was supposed to do with my life. And so I prayed, asking for help. But the response I got was not what I had expected. I heard a voice. And the voice said "if you want to die, fine. You may die." And I felt a prick on my back as if a knife was there and a presence in my room. The voice said "3...2...1..." And in my mind I shouted, "WAIT! I don't want to die. I'll find my purpose. I'll live. I promise." So that's what I did. I found my purpose and who I was supposed to be, but I still had many obstacles to overcome. One of them included a first love. A first relationship. It was unlike any other. It was passionate, but still amateur. It was innocent, but still real. It was exclusive, but still honest. It wasn't real love, and it wasn't nothing. It wasn't red, and it wasn't white. It was pink, and everything in between. We had details of our own and we were just us. I wasn't as easily trusting as I should've been, given my past. However I was persuaded to open up. And when I think of trust, I think of a very soft color connotation. I think of beige. Because beige is very soft and subtle yet it can be very powerful and the perfect shade is hard to find. So I started to trust. But little did I know that it would not to me good in the long run. I had my own personal and unique nickname, and our own inside jokes that only the two of us understood. I was on cloud 9 because no one ever understood me and loved every part of me. No one ever called me incredible before and no one outside of my family had ever said "I love you" to me in that way. Life couldn't have been better for me. I was floating on my own white cloud, fully convinced that everything would always get better, because it did. Within the relationship, however, I was made fun of for everything I did. I wasn't comfortable with a part of the relationship. I hadn't yet lost that urge of "I shouldn't text back too soon." I just didn't feel right. I was confused about my sexuality as well. So I decided to let the other half of my relationship know, thinking that I could always count on them to help me. But everything fell apart from there, again. My life went from white to gray. My fear was that it would turn black. And it did, very soon. But this time it wasn't my fault. I was being honest. However I was not receiving what I should've been receiving back. Instead, I was ignored for a week, trying to explain the miscommunication. It seemed like the person who loved me then hated me. We didn't text everyday even though I really wanted to and nothing was the same. Until, one night when I was on vacation with my family, I got dumped over snapchat. I couldn't stop crying and I needed the comfort of my family. I kept thinking "how could this have happened to me again???" My life was black, and so was my heart at that point. But in reality, everything changed for the better. I was faced with a jerk and I've moved on. I'm stronger now and I'm finding who I am. What I've learned is that everything always gets better. No matter what, someone will be there for you and someone will keep you strong long enough to get through the worst. You can do it.

"Everything is better in the end. If it's not better, it's not the end."