I'm 12 years old and I know I am differant. I know that I'm alone. I'm painfully aware of it all. I didn't want any of this. I didn't have anything to begin with, but I didn't want the things that I DID have. I was orribly clinically insanely depressed. I had a notebook though- a notebook that kept me from goin over the edge- that kept me right ON the edge of insanity and destruction. It was one slight twitch and I was over never to return again- at 12. This was before I knew love- true love. Before I had it, before I lost it- before I even knew what REAL destruction was- I was destroyed. But how? How does this happen to a young girl t 12 years old. Good grades- mother, father, sister, smart as all hell. Perfect. It's perfection that kills you. It perfection that drives you over the edge- It's passion. It's stadning in one place against your will and having to sit there It's a 19 year long time- out. I have been going through a 19 year long time out. I was 12. I had the stars. I had my backyard, I had nighttime, I had the starts. Insomnia. I would sit on my back porch for hours staring at them. The only thing I wanted to be was an astronaut. To get as far away from all of it as I possibly could. To be floating out there experiening a place that I have NEVER, and probably never will be again. I was a runt. My dream was broken. But this was not my dream. Just a realization that I had a growing impulse to run away. To get away, to start over, to inspire everyone- millions. I wanted to be apart of someothing huge- much bigger than myself. As big- bigger than the univerve. I would not settle for the normal life that every last other member of my family has settles for. I would be grea. I knew it. I would struggle and be hurt beyond human rasp- I knew this as well. For 19 years it was crushing. WHen I lost my only love It was crushing. When I came out of it- It was reconstructively empowering. The itch. the irriatation that cant be shaken. All of it. The itch that signalled evertthing I loved- and very chance I had at a future containing any amount of happiness would be burnt away in the flames that has consumed the first 19 years f my lfe thus far. Why am I hanging on? For them- for every last person that is faced with a challenge against all odds. For every one of those oepople who are poor, homeless, dieng, struggling, nd in pain. To show the world what srength the hman SOUL has. Not just the human body. The soul. To show the world just how powerful the soul can be.