The Spaghetti Principle

Life doesn’t tend to be all lollipops and rainbows.

You live a normal life, and small problems pop up.

You ignore them, because ignorance is bliss and everyone wants bliss.

Then the day comes where you check it out.

And you find out it was worse than you expected.

Whoever it is, a doctor, a psychologist, a teacher, even a parent, they assign a word to it.

Something small, a collection of syllables that hurt you more than the worst of tortures ever could.

Dyslexic. Diabetic. Lazy. Dumb. Obese. So many things I’ve heard being assigned to so many people.

Being that becomes your fault. Your shortcoming. The second those words come to use in your existence, your identity, you’re written off as problematic.

One teeny tiny little world that spins the earth out of its axis.

You hear that and suddenly the world distorts, sounds blur together, and your life — your life comes to a screeching halt.

You’ll refuse to eat.

To smile.

To laugh.

Refuse everything in this world that contains even a fragment of joy and sunshine, choosing instead to fall into a never-ending abyss of self-hate and self-pity.

You’ll be standing alone on a desolate island of misery, passing your time with tears, when a raft out sits right in front of your feet.

A surprising amount of teenagers live in a surprising amount of islands.

The clinical name for it is depression.

And it’s beatable.

Because the raft is there.

The raft isn’t a limousine with VIP seating and a private chauffeur.

It’s a messy hunk of wood with two paddles tied together with spare materials and hope.

And there are oceans you have to cross, tsunamis to conquer, and sea monsters to battle.

But waiting on that island, alone, waiting for someone to save you might be easier, sure, but then you will never truly be saved, for you would leave half of yourself behind in that cage.

Escape isn’t easy, but no one said it would be.

And when you do escape, you have the power to fix that word, that label, though doing it proves to be easier said than done.

Sometimes, you have to forget about magic spells and Prince Charmings and people, people who you expect to save you, and save yourself instead.

Sometimes, you have to take matters into your own hands.