October 28, 2013

When Bad Things Happen to Bad People

This is my last blog post. I need to go away for a long while. And, I didn’t want to stop writing without saying good bye. When I first started writing this blog, I thought I could right some wrongs. But, as it turns out, I’ve done it all wrong. Now, I’m going to tell you why, so read carefully.

I’d always thought the world would finally make sense if only bad things would happen to people who deserve it. Everyone freaks out when bad things happen to good people. We wonder why them?

But what we’re really wondering is why can’t bad things just happen to the bad people. Like, somehow we KNOW who the bad people are. We KNOW who is deserving of bad things. But do any of us really know, with certainty, who the bad ones are?

Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s you. Maybe it’s your father or mother. Your best friend. Or your worst enemy. There’s always the opportunity to see the bad in anyone. It’s so easy to do. Too easy, really.

When my life started to fall apart this year, I hated so many people. It was easy to blame everyone else for my pain. But somehow the line between good and bad, victim and villain eventually got blurred. Sure, I started out as the one who everyone hated. So what did I do? I became just like them. A hater.

Now three students are dead. I wish I could say they were the bad ones. That they deserved their fate. But now I see that I’m no different from any of them. Just like each of them, I’ve done a horrible thing that I cannot undo. But here’s the weird part… I don’t FEEL like a bad person. I just feel like me.

I wish that I’d realized from the beginning how much we are all struggling together. To find our place in this shitty world called high school. Maybe then nobody would have had to die.

If you’ve learned anything from my story, I hope it’s this… be careful who you judge. Because the harsher you judge, the harder you need to look at the person in the mirror. Next thing you know the bad things that you wish on others, could very well start happening to you.