Have you ever felt like you were being pulled in a million different directions? Like everyone in the world was expecting something different from you? My mind is so numb from thinking constantly. Every emotion has intensified and then eventually, disappeared. There are times I can't sleep at all and many days when I do nothing but sleep. My dreams are haunted with fears and nightmares... but it seems there's no escape... because I wake to something worse... a mind that can't stop thinking, worrying... a heart that aches from loneliness, even when surrounded by people. And every person I talk to wants me to be something else... my dad wants the perfect daughter... something I'm just not. He wants someone who is stronger than I am... more responsible... I have to be strong for my family in this hard time... but I can't be strong for myself when I'm alone... I still cry often... and a lot of times, I don't know why. I'm so worried about being sweet, caring, compassionate, loving, responsible, smart, the perfect daughter, the perfect sister, perfect aunt... the perfect everything... I'm so concerned with being what everyone else wants me to be... but I don't even know what I want me to be... I don't know who I am... I know who I was... I remember a time in my life when sadness and tears were rare... I smiled constantly and found joy, hope and love in the smallest gestures. But my mind and heart have been tainted... jaded. I'm so afraid of life. I'm afraid of my future because of what's happened in my past. I'm terrified of lies and deceits... afraid that even the people I trust most will betray me. So many times people have said "You're important to me"... and they left... and the end of that sentence was found. "You're important to me, but not important enough." People have loved me. There are some that still do. But I'm afraid to believe in forever because forever has already ended for me several times. Like when my mom said she would be here for me forever... because I was important... but when she left almost half a year ago... she showed me how soon "forever" can end, because I might have been important, but I was not important enough. I've grown to find constant fault within myself... trying desperately to find and fix what it is in me that has pushed so many people to leave. There are so many things about me that I wish I could tell, but I can't... so many things I wish that I could say to people... things that I will probably never say. For a long time, I knew I wasn't perfect, but I accepted that. I also accepted that I was a good person, even if I wasn't perfect. Somewhere between then and now, I lost that. When I look in the mirror, I don't see a good person. I'm not sure what I see anymore. And I don't know exactly when I lost the ability to see good in myself... only that I did. I don't understand why I have to feel this way... why I have to worry and be constantly afraid of losing someone I love or not being enough... but I'm beginning to believe that eventually, all people will leave me. They will tire of me, just like everyone that's left before, and I don't blame them. I'm tired of myself. And I don't want to be alone, but I always end up that way and I'm waiting for it to happen again. Maybe this is my fate. Maybe God, like everyone else, has grown tired of me. I don't know what will become of me. My thoughts are too scrambled. And even though it seems I've said a lot here, this is nothing compared to what is in my mind. It's only that I cannot seem to get everything into words... and there are many things I'm not even sure words can describe. Maybe in the future I can find what it is that's missing in me... maybe I can believe wholeheartedly that I am loved unconditionally... that the people that matter most to me love me as I have loved them... and never will leave me. Maybe I will be able to trust in forever again... but right now... it hurts too much to try. -And rain hid my tears as I cried, "Please... love me."- K