21)

If the people you love the most tell you enough times that you can't do something, you will inevitably start to believe it.  That is the current predicament I find myself in.  I can't even fathom explaining how much this hurts.  On a daily basis, I find myself questioning the one constant source of support I have had my entire life.  My family has always been there for me.  They have always loved me unconditionally, but now....  I just don't feel like that anymore.  I know they still love me, nothing can convince me otherwise.   However, is the support still there?  No, is the resounding answer I find I have to face.  My sister, the one person in the entire world who knows all my secrets, the one I go to when I am in trouble first, she has basically told me that she won't be there for me if I move to Tucson.  I hate this!  Why do I have to chose between letting her down and letting myself down?  She is so concerned with preventing me from feeling like I have failed when the Tucson move doesn't end well--which it probably won't because I'm not sure how compatible Adam and I will be as roommates.  Why then, through all of this concern, can't she see that if I don't do this, I will have already have failed horribly.  She may have forgotten, but I have already experienced this feeling of utter failure and acceptance of what I have to settle for.  My senior year of high school, I was accepted to the school of my dreams, Whittier--a liberal arts college in California.  My family told me there was no way I could go.  I felt like my heart had shattered.  My friends were my support system at that time.  They were outraged that my family had let me down, allowed me to believe that I wasn't good enough.  Actually Amber and her little brother, you know the one I am in love with, were the most vocal and pissed about it.  They encouraged me to try and do it anyways, but I had already accepted it as impossible.  They haven't forgotten that moment.  I haven't forgotten that moment, that feeling of utter and complete loneliness and failure.  It is something that sticks with you.  So now, with that feeling in mind and my newly acquired sense of self-sufficientcy--however brutally misguided it may be--I am determined to make this move work.  I will get a place with Adam.  I will get my degree and go to a great graduate school.  I will find at least one job.  I will be able to pay all my bills on time...or really close to on time.  I will succeed.  I will do whatever it takes to make this work...within reason, at least...I won't sell a kidney or any other part of me...don't worry about that.  I will keep my damned dignity!
 
This will work! 

I will not fail!

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest...