Christina Ireland
December 15, 2015

C.H.I.L.D.: Survival of a Broken Youth
Care.
Heal.
Idle.
Live.
Die.
Repeat steps 4-5.
1. Care: Maybe mommy abuses you, maybe daddy dies too young. Perchance they leave you, unprotected from the horrors of the world when all you never knew you wanted was a knight in shining armor. Perhaps you don’t have a mom or dad. No matter what, your broken home is your castle, crumbling but resolute. No one would care if you screamed and threw tantrums, you’re just another royal who doesn’t realize how good you’ve got it. When the castle tumbles down and everyone else is so self-absorbed in their own woes, and all you have is the confusing ebbs and flows of screaming and silence, Care. Care for others, avoid the self-pity that is failing everyone around you in your sad, broken home.
2. Heal: Surely, they break your heart. Indeed, they kill your spirit, they take your love and sap it from your wooden chest. You forgot to listen to Jiminy; you don’t think you can care for anyone ever again. Already, you were turning to wood, trying to be your own knight in shining armor, and now, more than ever, you think you need another layer of protection. Do not lie to yourself to create a mass of hard, dense wood. You are a real person. Heal for the sake of everyone who refused to find the strength to become soft again.
3. 4. 5. Idle, Live, Die: Perhaps daddy can’t pay the bills, perhaps mommy is a potion of emotion and pills. Your smartphone doesn’t heal years of household disconnection. Your Xbox makes no sense when two mortgages hang over your adolescent head. You Idle in the years waiting for the divorce to finalize, the custody battle to conclude. You Live through your parents’ woes. You learn the system is broken when the decision you don’t want returns to you. It is acceptable to Die. Die inside, because sometimes you need to rise again from the ashes of the life you once lived. 
6. Repeat steps 4-5: Your life Idles as you wait for life to begin. School drags on, work drags on, your mundane life full of WiFi connections and awkward misdirections drags on. You Live through the new world of dizzying disillusions and unhelpful aids, of linkage to the towers and royals you once envisioned to explain your crumbling walls. You want to Live through it all again, if only to retain that fantastical coping mechanism, if only to gain excitement in life. This time, Die peacefully. Stop waiting and wishing and wanting: Die to rise anew, to complete what was started.
Child, you lived through it all without living through anything. You understood there were others less well-off than you. You have hated yourself for wanting more. You have entitled yourself to more. You have blamed parents, you have survived without parents. You have lived through terrorism and psychological warfare at home; you have lived without a place to call home. You lost your heart and barely found it again. You have been told you know nothing of this world when those making that judgement haven’t experienced your story.You have been told what and who you are and will be by authorities who challenge you to figure it out for yourself. You have been called names, you have thrown stones. Child, you lived through a lifetime of experience, not a full life. 
Your life awaits you, so trust me when I say, “You’ll be alright.”