“ What makes you a Shell of yourself?”
Well you see it's its all but too simple to ignore the question and continue on until you're too old to have memory of anything you've done that morning earlier, let alone what was asked of you here today. You'll do like most us with little too much to say and a lot too much on our minds. I'm not quite keen on how your story begins but I can give you a glimpse of insight of mine. I grew up special, from a young age I was years above my time but smart enough to let adults play adults and know my place as a child, I was observant, passive but clueless and assertive. I blamed myself for realizing my mother had a drug addiction when I wished I stayed oblivious to it all because as I was then what was the point of knowing of something that I couldn't help erase from the boards of her life or mine let alone be tall enough to clean each diameter of it. I watched the family fall apart like it was a game of tug of war yet it was me against every demon who held us captive. I stayed strong for everyone , never cried, complained or voiced my thoughts.That was it, there was when it started. I must've been so good at being strong that I was gifted a fake smile and laugh to accompany it. So I used those gifts to the fullest from the day I was separated from my twin brother to my mother going to jail and leaving me to grow alone to the day my grandma had to say her last goodbye to this life...and that day was really hard I almost thought the gift would be taken away. I eventually received a new gift and this one even greater than the last, it was another me except it did everything for me while I sat back and watched. Now I'd make friends who I knew everything about but knew nothing about me, here I'd gain new siblings who I rarely knew how to interact with, here I'd waste so much of hours worrying what family and the church would think instead of what Shamai wanted. After years of the same cycle I knew I wanted change I wanted to return the gifts and live for myself to find out who myself even was. Id reach my 18th birthday and 6 days later lose my mother to those same very demons. I extended the return policy for my gifts again back to square one and lost a second time but when things seem to all fall apart that's when the man upstairs so everyone calls him starts to intervene , he gave me the most beautiful gift I could've even and never would've thought of, Shane. He gave me something warm, kind,genuine,forgiving, patient and loving .. the tenderest gift of love and someone to share it with. This gift was so amazing I didn't even realize I had forgotten about the other ones I had received before. So the me now years later of growing and finding me I have had rough times not mentioned and times I've stored away, memories made on my own and memories shared with my gift.I never realized how close I came to being completely empty but not from the inside out but the outside in , truly I could've grown old to being just a shell within myself.
