As I pack to leave for a new turn in my life story, I can't help but be a little crestfallen that my years as a child are over, now leaving me with the hefty job of organizing the last 17 years of my life. Past report cards remind me of my previously greatest fears conquered, old pictures remind me of the greatest times shared. Sorting through boxes and drawers that haven't been touched for years due to my flawless procrastination skills, something pink and fuzzy catches my eye. A book. What's more, a book bound with black spirals, a book with a dancing 'groovy chick' indented amid the soft fur, a book inscribed "Belongs to Taylor Stocks. Age 11". My first diary. The first 100 or so pages are written in a code I had created, due to a rather malicious bullying incident I had experienced many moons before. Skimming forward, three years of preteen angst unfold before my curious eyes. This journal is the predecessor of six others. Books that have held my deepest secrets. Pages that have kept my sanity. Words that would sometimes be the only true thoughts and feelings I ever weasled out of my mind. But what if they were never there? What if I never had that grounding point? What if I had never started that first diary? What if it never existed? I am wheeled back to November 2002. My english teacher thought I had the IQ equivalent to that of a chimp, my great-grandparents who had raised me had died the previous year, and my father was in the hospital with a relapse of one of his many health problems. I was assigned to a guidance counsellor as I was near failing both Geography and English (no surprise there). But my only recluse lies in the drawer of my bedside table. I drag home after another ego-stripping day, open my drawer waiting for that relief that I knew would come at this point and... Nothing was there. Papers, tape, string, just unimportant trinkets. Nothing. Fast forward to a year and a half later on my fourteenth birthday, well into my first year at my new school. I waited for three and a half hours for false promises told by my new made friends to come and take me for lunch after my shortened choir practice. I cried for hours to my mum; being forgotten on your birthday is not a fun treat, but a parent can only understand so much. It's alright though, I know this part of the memory well- running up the stairs, trying to shut my awkwardly fitting door, grabbing the sanctuary under my pillow. I reach, my fingertips knowing the feel of the then black, duct taped journal, it's edges curdled from the flame of my lighter. There was nothing. Just a mattress, just the end of my bed. Nothing. Once more forward I plunge, this time it's more than a memory. I am fourteen years old and I am cold. I am so cold, even though it's mid-May. And I am tired. I am tired of these never-ending monsters that find satisfaction only in my unhappiness. I want to sleep. I don't want to wake up again. I sit on the edge of my bathtub, holding a bottle of prescription painkillers while another balances beside me. I am crying. My mum knocks on the door but it's locked so she can't get in. I don't think I want to let her in. She knocks again, this time more anxiously. I stare meekly at the door. She is calling my name. Over and over. She has started to pound on the door. "Taylor let me in!" I can hear her fear, her pain. I unhinge the hook and eye. She sees me there and I look up at her, eyes puffy from my tears. "I don't want to live anymore." And there is Nothing.