It was Sunday afternoon. My mom and I were in the kitchen making small talk, while she cooked. Suddenly, she brought my ex into the conversation. At this point I kept quiet. I had nothing more to say about him. Frankly, I didn't even want to hear about him. She went on and on about how he lets his friends influence him too much and he's not going to change unless he changes his friends and she's glad that I know what I want. Then she uttered those five words that I had been waiting to hear from her for so long, but had given up on.

"I'm so proud of you..."

What? I was in shock. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. My mom had only said that to me twice before, but it wasn't genuine and it was for something stupid. I wanted to cry. Doesn't every child want to make their parents proud? And now I know I had finally done something right to make my mom proud. But wait, she wasn't done.

...for handing the break up so well.

I wasn't sure how to feel after that statement. I wasn't sure if I should take it as a compliment or an insult. I understood why she was saying she was proud because she thought my depression was going to get worse and I would try to hurt myself. Basically she was proud that I didn't attempt suicide again. I had no intentions of hurting myself after breaking up with my ex, which is why I don't see it as a reason to be proud. Even if my depression did get worse it's not something that I can easily control by myself.

After that I started thinking of all the times my ex and I got in fights because of my depression. My mom would take his side and tell me that I should try to be more understanding of him because if I didn't he was going to get tired of me and leave and then things would be worse for me. She tried to convince me to be "better for him" because she didn't want him to leave and now that he is gone she sees that I'm better off without him.

I suppose I should be proud for handling my depression so well the past few months, especially since I had no support and had to deal with it alone, but when I think about it I feel worse. Even though I'm better off now it makes me sad to think that I had no one when I really needed someone. If my depression ever gets really bad again I don't think I could handle not having anyone.

I'm waiting to be set free,
so I can live life the way it's supposed to be,
but things from my past keeps lingering on...
everything I regret, all the emotions I felt,
and every word that was said.

What the future holds for me I do now know.
Hopefully it will allow me to find all that I need to know.
What the past has done to me is hard to change.
It's hard to accept the fact of feeling so deranged.

I hope someday soon I will find me.
When I look in the mirror I still don't know the person I see,
an innocent girl who lost what she used to be...
confident, self respectable and so much more.

They've stolen everything I used to have
and everything that made me, me.
Now I have nothing,
but the hopes and dreams that someday
I will be set free,
so I can live life the way it's supposed to be.

©SimplyNita

(Note: This was written about four years ago)

I grew up hearing real ghost stories from my parents and other relatives. I've always believed in ghosts ever since I was a child, but never thought I'd see one.

I was about ten years old. At the time my maternal grandmother was living with us and she stayed in my room. I let her sleep on my bed while I slept on this fold out bed that faced the side of my bed at night. I hadn't been sleeping well at night. My mom thought it might be because of the mini tvs in my room. My dad was the superintendent of our building and the tvs for all the surveillance cameras were in my room (don't know why) I had always been afraid of the dark especially when sleeping alone so I never allowed anyone to turn off the tvs at night, but since my grandmother was with me I decided to give it a try.

It worked well for about a week. I slept well at night and only had trouble falling asleep. After that week, I started waking up at two something in the morning (don't remember the exact time) I woke up at the same time every night, three nights in a row. On the fourth night I woke up to a bright white light next to me. I thought it might be the tvs, but when I looked up I saw my grandfather (at the time he had been dead for five years)

He looked really worried. I rubbed my eyes and sat up in bed a little. Then he started telling me that something bad was going to happen. As he began telling me exactly what it was I couldn't hear his voice anymore, but could still see his mouth moving. I moved in closer to try to hear him, but he vanished. I looked at the clock and saw that it was a few minutes past the time I had been waking up for the past three nights. I assumed I had woken up at the same exact time again and went back to sleep. That morning when I woke up, I instantly remembered my grandfather. I thought it had to be a dream, so I didn't think about it after that.

The following week my mom told me that my dad's boss lost his contract for the building, meaning my dad was out of a job and if he didn't get hired by this new company we would also have nowhere to live. At the time my dad made more than half of what my mom made and we depended on his salary. I immediately thought of my grandfather and realized that must have been what he was trying to tell him. I didn't tell anyone about what I saw because I was afraid they wouldn't believe me or worst they would think I was crazy.