Page 39 - Student: dazed And Confused

That girl used to be me, and the man was my father. He was unknown to me until that one
fateful day when he decided to wander into my life. That day I discovered that giving into
your grief and weeping wasn't the weakness I'd always thought it was. If I harnessed it,
then unleashed it all in one go, it could do great things. The girl realised this and thought of
it as a brilliant secret. She was too young to control her emotions properly.
But, she was mature. Much more so than I am at my advanced age. I am an old
woman now and you will notice that I will always refer to my younger self in the third
person. This is because I feel so detached from that time that it could well have happened
to another person - I've learnt to distance myself from her. She saw the world in ways
typical of a child, but so much more objectively than any adult. I am probably more

analytical of young Jess's thoughts and actions than she would have been, but I want you to
understand her.
NOW

You will probably be wondering when the story is going to start properly. First, you
must understand why I am writing this account. Possibly for your entertainment, I've got
nothing against that - this story may intrigue you. For me, it is so that I can finally put the

past behind me and die without unresolved issues holding me back. I also want you to know
how badly you can really hurt people if you keep your emotions bottled up. I don't want
anyone to ever make the same mistakes that that girl did. I don't want anyone to have to
live in the world that I do.
It's hard to bring all the past back and relive such painful moments, but you only
really know if something is worth it if it hurts. Because everything good takes time and work
and, sometimes, tears. It used to make me cry to recall everything that she went through,
but I can't cry anymore. It all happened to someone else, someone I watched many years
ago. She is me but somehow not me. I'm different from that girl.
I have two tales to tell - hers and my own. Both are frighteningly real, too true to be

made up. It's when you think that you're in total control of something that you realise that
nothing could be farther from the truth; it has control of you. I understand that now; the
girl didn't. She thought she could control her emotions but she was too young to really
know what control was. Control can be relinquished so easily and dramatically that you
might not even realise that it has changed until it's too late. I still don't know why this
happened to her, maybe I'll never really know. But, the main thing is that it did happen.
And now I am telling you this so it never happens again. You can read this as an elaborate
novel with a well thought-out plot, or as it is meant, a true story. That's your choice; you
are in control of how you read it. Maybe these are just the ramblings of a crazy woman,

desperate for attention so she makes up the most incredible story imaginable. But maybe,
just maybe, this is all real and I remember all these things.
You decide.