It's December 31, 2018. New Year's Eve. All my friends are with their friends, their family, and significant others. It's raining outside and I subject myself to it by sitting on the balcony, convincing myself I just need peace. Why would I find it from water falling from the sky? Is it the sound that it makes when each drop finds its mark? The smell of wet pavement on the road as people head home to their loved ones? Watching it is almost surreal. I can feel each drop hit my skin and cascade away without ever touching. I can imagine what it'd be like if I lived a different life. Heels splashing through puddles as I run to the safety of my friend's party. But my friends aren't in the state. And I don't like parties.

I've been sitting in the same spot for four days, saying I'm fine on my own by constantly checking my phone.

It's been a rough year. Emotionally damaging and draining, physically demanding. But it still was full of opportunity. Graduation, first job, first semester at college, first real-life experiences. First heartbreak. I've always convinced myself that my depression was tied to where I grew up, how I lived and how I was suffocated. And yet it never stopped. There were periods where things were simpler, things made sense and I seemed almost healthy to the naked eye.

You should never take a look through that microscope.

In every healthy person is cancer waiting to grow, an injury ready to happen, a break that will never heal quite right.

I've loved and I've lost and loved again.

I've made bad decisions that could still come to wreak havoc on me, my happiness and those surrounding.

I wait for my phone to buzz. I don't care who from. As long as it's someone seeking my company, my input, my presence.

But it seems when it comes down to it the only text I ever get is those people looking for a source of entertainment. They want to see my face to tell me I'm pretty but never want to know my middle name.

I've turned against myself this year. I've shed tears for far too long over someone who never gave a damn.

I've spent too much time focusing on what doesn't matter, ignoring what does.

I don't know if it's to make myself feel better but I know it doesn't make me feel worse until I look into the face of my mother and see her worry lines, see how tired she is and know that she just wants the best for me.

I stay up constantly saying I don't need to sleep but in reality, it was never a choice. I close my eyes and see the demons from my past, think about things that shouldn't be floating through my brain. They haunt me and make me hold in my screams, count my breath, and wipe away my tears because the feeling is for the weak.

I sit on this balcony all alone on New Year's Eve. All I want is a little company. I would like to shoot off fireworks with those that mean most. But I put myself in a position to be lonely instead.

The rain that I feel on my skin is saltier than it is meant to be. The droplets are coming from my eyes.

I'm terrified of what has been, what could be and what will.

I have this problem. It's called depression. It's called anxiety. It's called I don't know how to say enough is enough.

The words I'm writing may not make sense. This should be some lengthy social media post about how it was the greatest year of my life.

I'll say it when I'm no longer afraid. When I no longer cry at night. When the rain pouring down doesn't comfort me because it feels like my all-too-familiar tears. I'll say it when I'm valued for my mind and not my body. I'll say it when I can be alone in peace and not wonder what I'm missing. I'll say it when I have a house that feels like home instead of a building I shouldn't be in.

2018 wasn't the best year. Nor the worst. It was a year.

And as the clock counts down and people receive their kisses at midnight, I'll be sitting on this balcony wondering what life has yet to throw at me.