Ok, ok...
Note: I will be using people's real names, because why not. Nobody's gonna be able to look them up in any way shape or form. Now... let's get to it.
My name is Matthew. And I was born May 7, 1997, in Gresham, Oregon. My parents were both born and raised in California, and my older brother, Jacob, who's a year and a half older than me, was born in California. But they moved up here when my brother was like 3 months old, because of my dad's work. And so we live here now. And my little brother, Aaron, 3 years younger than me, was born here as well. Actually the same hospital as me. Anyways, I would say I was born into a Christian home, which is fundamentally true, but not technically. My mom became a Christian when I was 2, and my dad followed a few months after. So I had the usual, "Jesus loves you, Matthew." When I was 3. And I "asked Him into my heart" which is about as meaningful as nothing when you're that little, in my opinion
Anyways, my upbringing was the most perfect upbringing you could think of. It makes me feel bad honestly cause a lot of people have some really crappy parents. My mom and dad are amazing, and I could never ask for better parent figures in my life.
My older brother was 4, and it was time to go to Preschool. So my mom signed him up for a Preschool really close to our house, but he didn't want to go alone. So my mom made me go with him... So I went to Preschool with my brother, and then went when it was kids my age. So i did Preschool twice
And now I'll go ahead and touch upon a thing that has really played a part in my life. Me and my brother are 180 degree opposites. I'm super extroverted and outgoing, and if there's someone I don't know, I'll walk up to them and start getting to know them. He's introverted, he's super shy, he's the guy that just sits by himself and never talks to anybody. Seriously, I don't get how a person can live like that. I see people and I just want to talk with them! He's so different. And that plays a huge part later on, but that's way later on. Back to Preschool. I met this guy, Morgan, and he became my first friend ever. He had super cool hair. And we both had a crush on this girl, Kendra. My first love :puppy: Haha no, it was just a stupid little kid crush. I have never seen her once since Preschool ended. Anyways, I then began attending the school my brother went to for Kindergarten, the school I still attend to this very day. It is a private Christian school, K-12, and super super small. Only me and one other guy have been there since Kindergarten. His name is Jonah. And I swear I'm still gonna be his friend when we're 70. I met him... when we were like 4 or something at a church barbeque or something, I have no idea, I was 4
So anyways, school started in Kindergarten. And I had a crush on a different girl, Sienna. I promised her I'd marry her. Yupp... haven't seen her in 8 years XD XD XD Anyways, this is when my mom first started to see something in me... My temper... I had an awful temper. I'll tell this one story that my mom retells me. Everytime went to get our teacher's mail from her box down in the office, she had us go with a partner. But one time she told me to go by myself. And I said no we go with partners. And she told me she wanted me to go by myself. And apparently, I picked up my chair and threw it at her... Yeah, that's me. My mom said I used to throw things clear across rooms and scream and stuff. I remember throwing a big metal toy car at my friend because his baseball team beat mine. I literally just chucked it at him XD But yeah, I had a pretty bad temper. My mom tried to help me and stuff, but it stayed the same all through elementary school. But now we move on the 1st grade, same school, but... The first day of school... I was chillin with my guy friends, and I looked up to the other end of the field, and there was this girl... standing by a bush... and I was a goner. I walked over to her and asked her what she was doing. She said "Looking for tree hoppers." I asked if I could help, and she said yes. And I was in love. Her name is Ana. Oh Ana... **** you
ANYWAYS, all of elementary school is a blur to me. It was all the same old same old, and I really mean that. Oh wait, I forgot to mention a key thing though. My little brother has autism. And I don't feel like explaining what it is for people who don't know, and Google could do a better job than me anyways. Now, he's not super severe, but he's autistic. And it pisses me off a lot. A lot of times he could do bad things and my parents wouldn't punish him because he's "special". And it would piss me off. My older brother never got punished either, cause he was the good kid. I was the one who couldn't keep his mouth shut, beat up on my older brother, yelled at my parents, got in trouble at school, I got suspended once in 2nd grade for tipping a kid's chair over. He slammed his head on the ground really hard, it was pretty bad. But yeah, I wasn't like a SUPER bad kid, but compared to my brother, I was in trouble all the time. I threw a rock at his face once cause he wouldn't play a game with me. And just... well that's how it was. 1st through 7the grade, my life was the same. There were little things, I got glasses in 3rd grade, and I was like holy crap you're supposed to actually be able to read the board from your seat??? XD And this whole time I still had a crush on Ana. And I was still best friends with Jonah, I had other friends, but that was basically it. 6th grade was pretty bad in terms of me getting mad at people and in trouble, but 7th grade got better. And then.......... 8th grade.......
8th grade began, and I didn't just have a childish crush on Ana anymore. I was freaking madly in love with her. To the point where every waking moment I was thinking of her, and I knew she didn't like me back. It's kinda the classic setup, but honestly it depressed me really bad. And during all this, Jonah loved her too. But because I knew for a fact she didn't like me, my mind made up illusions that she liked Jonah. Which she didn't. But... I began to hate Jonah for it. But I still stayed his friend, because you know those people that you hate because they have something you don't, but you still like them because of it? It's weird to explain, I still have a couple people like that in my life today, but anyways, back to 8th grade. There was also this other kid in my class... Taylor... Taylor Taylor Taylor. I hated him. Now I want to talk about something. There is love, and then there is true love. And I believe there is hate, and there is true hate. I think not many people ever experience true hate. I never say I hate anybody, because I know what it feels like to truly with your guts hate somebody. Because I truly hated Taylor. True hate is much like true love, every waking moment you're thinking about them. With love it makes you depressed. With hate it makes you angry. You know that mood you get in where you're so agitated, but keeping it in, and then you like reach to turn on a light switch, and you miss, AND YOU JUST WANT TO KILL ALL THE MOTHER EFFING LIGHT SWITCHES IN THE WORLD!!! I know you all know that edgy feeling, and I felt like that 24/7. I literally did. And one time we were playing basketball in PE, and he kicked me in the leg, and to me it looked on purpose, so I started yelling and stuff. The teacher came over and asked what happened, and I said "He kicked me like that!" As I kicked him as hard as I could in the shin. And then he punched me in the face. And we were both suspended for 2 days. Another time, we were playing football in PE, and I tripped and fell on the ground. And I was just done with life. So everyone came over to see if I was ok, and I jumped up and cussed them all out and threw my lock of my locker at them when we got back to the locker room, and I ALMOST got suspended again for that one. But yeah, I was incredibly angry all the time and incredibly depressed all the time. I had true depression. It was real, and it sucked. And so I would try and ya know hang out with Ana sometimes, but avoid Taylor for the life of me. But they were always in the same group of people. So I always had to decide, which was stronger in me, love or hate. I chose both equally times. But a lot of times I chose to avoid them, and it caused me to hang out with a guy who I was kinda friends with, but I got to know him more, out of being forced to hang out with at least somebody, and now we're like best friends. So now I'll talk about Ana. Ana is beautiful. I'll give spoilers now and say she still goes to my school, and I'm actually really really good friends with her. And she truly is one of the prettiest girls I have ever seen in my life. She's nice, she's humble, she's funny, and I was so in love with her it killed me. And now is when I'll say, if it weren't for two things, I literally would have committed suicide. I almost did once, I was going to jump out my window, headfirst onto the concrete below. I had the screen off and everything. But then a song stopped me... A song by a band that saved my life that year. They're called Tenth Avenue North, you may have heard of them, you may have not. Their album The Light Meets The Dark is what saved me. That one album, I would listen to over and over and over and bawl tears. Specifically one song: On and On. It's a song about God talking to us, but to me, I was singing it to Ana.
Listen to it and you'll see what I mean. I cried myself to sleep every single night listening to that song over and over. And the one other thing that literally kept me breathing every day was... Earthbound. That is why it is not just a game to me. It is much more than a game to me. And everytime I... gosh... that game has such a special place in my heart, I'm almost in tears right now just thinking about Smiles and Tears... But funny thing is, I never played it. I didn't have the means. I watched Chuggaaconroy's Let's Play of it like 4 times though. And that's how I survived. Once I finally got my hands on the Virtual Console copy last year, I was so happy. I've played it twice since then, and that game is just so special to me. I viewed Paula as Ana, and me as Ness. And at the end, when you drop her off at home, and you know she wants to say "I love you" but she doesn't... After all you've been through... It just killed me. But also kept me alive. So that year pretty much SUCKED. There were little things too, I ran away from home once, my brother was in the same situation I was with a girl he really liked, but because of his shyness, he wasn't able to talk to her. And it made him super depressed as well. I to this day don't know if he still loves her or not... Aaaanyways... I had grown up like a typical Christian kid right? Follow the rules, don't cuss, and read my Bible. But in 8th grade, I really hated God. I really did. I would stand in my room and yell at Him and cuss Him out and ask Him why He was doing this to me, I never did anything to deserve this. I would yell and yell, and I hated him so much. And one day, in about April or May, I was just done. I was done with this God crap. He was useless, He didn't love me, **** Him, I hate Him. So I grabbed my Bible and I was going to rip out every single page one by one. I flipped open randomly in the middle and grabbed the page. But... my eye caught 9 words... "Oh Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger." I let go of the page... and kept reading. "Have mercy on me Lord, for I am weak." I started tearing up. "Save me for Your mercies' sake! Oh Lord, how long!" "All night, I drench my bed with tears!" And I fell on my face on my floor. And I can confidently say that I have never ever cried harder than that day. Gosh how I wish I knew exactly what day it was... Anyways, what I read was Psalms 6, which now has such a special place in my heart as well. It is the most meaningful Scripture in the world to me. I couldn't have lived without it. But... I was still depressed. 8th grade promotion happened though, Ana looked INSANE, and summer started... I got depressed again. Actually hold on a second.
There. I'm the ****** on the right, and that's Ana on the left. That was at 8th grade promotion. So, then summer started, and I honestly spent a lot of time staring at that very picture. But... time passed... and... love faded. I slowly became un depressed. And then, in August, I went to Trout Creek Bible Camp, with my best friend Calen. And Friday night, we were singing songs. And I was so overtaken by God, so overwhelmed by His love and mercy and that I was forgiven and loved by Him and that all He wanted was me to finally reach out and take His hand, so we could go live life in joy together. I felt this surge of electricity run through me and I collapsed to the ground on my face, bawling my guts out of my eyes. August 19, 2011, the day God scooped me up on His arms, called me His child, and I swore my life to the allegiance of Jesus Christ. 9th grade started, and my depression was over. I wasn't in love with Ana anymore, God took it away. I didn't hate Taylor anymore, God took it away. He saved me from my hell, and it made me love Him all the more. Gosh I love You, God.
Well then I actually started talking to Ana and getting to know her, and I also got to know a couple of her girl friends that I had never talked to before. One of whom, is... well... Her name is Megan. And I kinda started liking her. Eventually, on Febuary 29, 2012, I started really feeling in love with her. And this time it felt more real than Ana. It didn't make me feel dead and depressed, it made me feel alive and joyful. Near the end of our Freshman year, she started liking me too. And we hung out a TON over the summer, and, merely for the satisfaction of people, started calling ourselves official in the Fall of Sophomore year. I love Megan. She is so pretty and understanding and she always listens to me and she's so perfect. I'm not dating her because I want a girlfriend, I'm dating her because she's just too beautiful to let go.
During Sophomore year, I had a teacher, who is one of my favorite men on this earth. He changed me entirely, and I owe a lot of who I am to him. He is an amazing man, and I'm so sad that he moved away. But anyways, he made me question myself. I had always just been a Christian, since August 19 that is. Ya know, don't cuss, ignore the gay people, abortion's wrong, and Jesus is the way the truth and the life hallelujah praise the Lord don't ask any questions, just come to church on Sundays and you'll go to heaven. But Mr. Winningham, my teacher, one day in class started talking about why gay marriage needs to be legal. And all the "Christians" got super pissed at him. But I just sat there... And thought. I'm a thinker. And I talked to him about it, and it really intrigued me. And that inspired me to think a little more. And then, when Track started in the Spring, we had a new coach, Scotty, and man he changed me too. I talked with him a lot about politics and stuff, and he made me think, oh DANG did he make me think. And then, over the second half of my Sophomore year, over the summer, and really continuing throughout my Junior year, I don't accept ANYTHING on anybody's claim. This is why I personally get mad when Laz says in the MD that all religious people are mindless followers that don't think for themselves. Because I used to be that. But then I started wondering... What does the Bible actually say? I was SO SHOCKED!!!!! The Bible doesn't say so much that people say it does! And it SAYS things a lot of people don't ever talk about! It's insane to me how blind people are! My entire philosophy has entirely and totally been changed, the only thing I think the same about since Freshman year is that I love God and He loves me. But now, I believe what I believe, because I actually believe it. I have chosen to believe what I believe, and if you call me mindless, I swear to you that I am not. Because I do research, I read my Bible, but I don't force myself to
That's another stupid thing, "Devotions"? Really? You force yourself to care for 20 minutes every morning and then go and treat people like crap the rest of the day. Yeah, you're really following Christ, keep it up. (obvious sarcasm should be obvious). I could go on and on about the laundry list of things that "Christians" these days have totally distorted and how they're growing away from God every single day, but I'll spare you. Cussing is another big one though. Cussing is not a sin. And it's actually starting to piss me off that people say it is. Because it simply is not.
Really quickly, I want to say one more story though. Sophomore year kinda sucked though, because me and Megan got in a lot of fights. Spring that year was some of the worst 3 months of my life. We would get in a fight every single night. Literally. I would yell at her, cuss her out, tell her I was leaving, break her heart, and then everything would be forgiven and we'd try to smile at school the next day, but that night it would all happen all over again. I think it was because she was putting so much into the play that year, she was playing the lead role in Pygmalion after all. And I was working my butt off in Track. We were both so drained, and we didn't have the strength to maintain a relationship. We got healed over the summer though, and all of Junior year has been bliss for me. I got depressed last August for absolutely no reason at all, but now, satan just can't touch me. Megan's life is falling apart drastically, but I won't go into it because that's not my life to tell. She's crying herself to sleep every night though, and she's going through depression as well. I'm trying to be here for her, but it's hard...
But here is my final conclusion on life so far: "Life is what you make of it." You'll hear me say that from time to time. And what I mean is that, if we are happy, we'll be happy. Make sense? Probably not. If we only look for the bad in things, and then dwell on it when we find it, that's all we'll see. If you just say "I hate Johnny because he does that. I hate Johnny because he does that." JUST SHUT UP! Stop saying that! Look! Johnny's a super funny cool guy! I think disliking people is so stupid. Yes, there are still some people that I still dislike, but it's so stupid. If you repeat how stupid someone is, they're not gonna get any better. You can't change them, you can only change how you see them. Because life is what YOU make of it. And if we learn how to look at life through God's eyes, DAMN is it an amazing experience.
I am Matthew
Megan is the love of my life
I play piano
Owl City is a freaking genius
And I belong to God, all my heart and my soul
If you actually read all this... I pity you
You just completely wasted a good hour of your day
But thank you for listening, if you did
I love you
~43ForceGems