Waiting in the ER

“This is the time to make mistakes. Get lost but end up finding ourselves even more. Live life because we’re young and when look back we don’t want to say that we should’ve, we want to say that we did. After today let’s promise to make an impact. Maybe on the world or maybe just on one person, but let’s make sure that our generation is remembered as the ones that owned every second this world had to offer.”

 Those are the words running through my head. The words that our Valedictorian had spent so much time writing were the words that ended up making a huge impact on my life, because thanks to those words, I was now in Purgatory.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~

Today I woke up and got dressed for what seemed to be one of the worst days of my life, my high school graduation. The endless parties and immature behavior were now coming to a closing. The speech had been epic. My friends and I had all of a sudden turned tears into laughter and had now entered a yolo state of mind. We realized that today was the last day we’d be seniors. After this day reality would literally become too real. We might as well enjoy this last night. So of course the after party at Matt’s house made it so much easier for us to have a fun and reckless night.

 He supplied us with drugs that I’d never even heard of, but why should we worry, we’re only young once. By 10 p.m. I couldn’t even remember my name. I caught a glimpse of Keith staring at me from afar. He’d asked me out before but I rejected him every time. Now that I was high and wasted all at once, I didn’t care about anything, I just wanted to have fun all night long. So I managed to get myself over to him and literally offered myself to him because that’s all my body wanted.

 We made our way to the first bedroom we could find and had endless sex, at least that’s what it felt like. I thought back at how much I wanted to wait for marriage and then thought about what everyone else always told me which was that there was no point in waiting when sex doesn’t necessarily need to be related to love.

 Keith knocked out right after, ending the fun, so I left and found Max and his friends, the popular boys. They were so drunk and invited me for a ride in a convertible that they were “Borrowing.” I said yes without hesitation because so far this seemed to be the best night of my life.

 Feeling the wind run through my hair, singing and laughing in the dark hours of the night, it all seemed oh so perfect until the moment I felt my head just bang so hard on the concrete that I didn’t even have time to come to terms with what had just happened.

 A second after I was in the ER. I wasn’t sure who I was waiting for but after a while I saw a body. And when I got close I realized that it was me. As I saw my family members arrive with tears covering their faces I realized that I’d made an impact, just not the one I wanted to make. I thought back at what had happened and couldn’t believe it.

 

The only question is, after just one night of careless mistakes, where would God send me next?