I have been sitting alone in my room almost all night, looking at the stars, wondering what I have done to make my life so miserable. Since I was about eleven years old, I have done this every night in hope that a shooting star will dash across the sky and change my life forever. But it never has. I feel as though no one understands me, probably because they don't. It seems as though whenever I need someone to talk to, no one is ever really there for me.
No one around me, my family, my classmates or my neighbours appreciate me. They all think I am a mistake and they say that so often I am starting to believe it myself. If everyone is born for one reason, what is mine? I just don’t know. I just wish someone would give me a chance, a chance to figure out what makes me special. Because so far, I am not seeing it.
My new parents adopted me when I was ten. Before then I was kept in a orphanage in the middle of nowhere. It was filled with snotty nosed kids a lot older than I was who all thought they were better than one another. They thought they ruled the world bossing all of the kids my age around. None of these kids were thinking about their education, their manners or their future. The only thing on their minds was how to get more of what they call ‘street cred’. I never liked any of the kids there, I was lonely. Although that is no different from how I am today.
Miss Laurie, a carer at the orphanage and one of the only nice people there, was the person who decided on a name for me. She named me Monica because she felt it was a cheerful girlish name. She imagined me playing with dolls when I was a child, putting on makeup as a teenager and having many friends and a nice boyfriend when I was out of the orphanage. Once I was old enough to think it through, I realised that my personality was not cheerful nor girly and my name didn't reflect who I was.. So with Miss Laurie's permission, I changed it.
At the orphanage, my new parents seemed to really adore me. The stared at me, smiling when I did something cute and were really keen on taking me home.
I was starting to enjoy my new life, my parents still staring at me from the front seat of the car like I was a darling child. Then within the next few minutes something happened, something clicked in my parents minds as though they had only just realised something that was unclear to them at the orphanage. They began whispering to each other trying not to get too frustrated and they were staring at me all the way to my new home. And this time, they weren't looking at me with joy. This time, it was different. And once we arrived at our destination, I wasn’t sure what to think. It wasn’t until I was viciously grabbed by my wrists and literally dragged inside their house that I realised that living here was not going to be any better than the orphanage.
I was shoved into a very small room, which I later learned was my bedroom. All I heard afterwards was yelling between my parents. I didn’t quite hear what they were talking about. I only heard a few words, ‘thought’ and ‘boy’. I was ten at the time so I couldn’t really put the words together and understand what they were talking about.
The next two years of my life were almost hell. I was punished for doing the smallest things like talking when I wasn’t meant to and going out into the garden without asking. I was treated like a pet - similar to the way I was treated in the orphanage. But at my new home, it was much, much worse.
It has now been 4 years since I left the orphanage and I now we have a new edition to our family (even though it is very difficult to call them that). I now have a younger brother, Ryder. He was only adopted almost a year after I was when he was 9. He is twelve now yet he has been treated with more respect and love by my parents than I will ever receive from them.
I have literally received a ton a academic awards at school (yes, they were nice enough to send me there), but these all seem to pale in comparison to when Ryder comes home with an award from his sporting matches. This makes me feel invisible, this is how I feel every day.
Sitting on my bed now, looking at the stars outside my window, I feel less stressed about my life and as though all my problems are floating away. I feel in a whole new world, a world where I am appreciated and accepted for who I am.
I wish I could live in that world.
