We all can admit, this year was bizarre, but my life just began. Yet, this year was a struggle and we all can relate. I am a 14 year old girl, who goes by the online alias of Pinku, and this is my story of this year. The year first began of new beginnings. In 2019, I moved with my father and his wife, because of complications with my mother. For once, I was happy. Yet, January was going pretty well. On January 31, I was in my room playing with, at the time,my 5 year old sister. I then see my step mother sobbing in tears. It was very unusual, since she normally doesn’t cry, but she grabs my shoulder and gives me the most devastating news. My older brother was in the hospital and my dad was on his way there. I first thought, its a bit usual I guess, he normally is there, he gets injured a lot. Sadly, it was worse than that, he had critical injuries from his spine up to his neck. About 30 minutes later he was pronounced dead. Just laying there. I knew my father was hurt badly. I didn’t know what to do. Me and my little sister was rushed to my older sisters house, and my Step Mother proceeded to the hospital. We stayed there for a couple of days, so we could just take our mind of off it. I think the worse of it all was the funeral. It was a week later and it was a Muslim funeral. Half of my family is Christian and the other half is Islamic, so this was weird for us. I sat in the front row, alone with no one I knew, just his half sisters. They showed me his body. His poor, dried up, dead body. I can’t take the picture out of my mind, it’s haunting. Yet all of us kept pushing through. On his birthday, March 1st, we had a bit of a celebration at our house, and let go some balloons. It was just a depressing day. After that the schools shut down, because of Covid. I was actually on vacation at the time, and yet I only had 2 friends, I had no way to contact them. So I was a bit sad during the next couple months. At this time I was bisexual, dealing with even confessing because it is considered a sin with my religion. So I kept it a secret for years. During quarantine though, I met this non-binary person online, and fell in love with them, yet I don’t have the guts to even confess it. I realized that I am pan-sexual. It’s hard “staying in the closet” but if I reveal it, I would get punished, badly. I transferred to a different school district over the summer, because of old one being too problematic. So, I’m currently at a new school, doing virtual learning, with absolute no idea what i’m doing. It’s hard maintaining my 4.0 GPA, it even went down a bit. Either way, keep pushing through these tough times. It’s hard not being able to spend time with family and friends, and to walk into a store hyperventilating with a mask on, but life has its up and downs and it will change. So make it the fullest.
