I like myself. I mean, I think I do. I don't know if other people like me sometimes, but it doesn't really matter. Sometimes it does.

I think a lot. I wonder about the universe and society and myself and the world and God and music and feeling and poetry and stories and people and problems and solutions and everything.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm different, or if everyone else is different.

Some days I'm not as good as my friends and I can't do anything right and life is a mess and I stutter and trip and stumble and fall. Other days I'm the man on top and I can do anything and everything and there's not enough time in the world to reach the goals I set for myself.

There's also a girl. I say that nonchalantly, but there's nothing indifferent about the butterflies in my stomach right now. She makes me dizzy; she makes me smile. When she puts her hair up and smiles that smile, I know she has me on a string, but I don't care. I just want her to love me and I can never be good enough but maybe she wants me and I think it might happen but I can never be sure and tomorrow's another day.

I'm confused. Everything's up in the air and I don't know what to do and there's so many colleges. People are going here and there and my parents want me close and my friends are going faraway and I don't know what I want to do with my life. I love history and science and literature and math but I want to help people and I want to make God happy and I just don't know.

Some

days

life

is

slow.

Andsomedayslifeiswaytoofast.

Other days I want to scream and cry and go back to the way life used to be when everything was relaxed and I didn't have to worry and I could just fall asleep on the couch listening to my parents talk in the other room with country music on the radio and something baking in the oven with that special feeling in my stomach and I knew everything was going to be all right but it's not like that anymore.

I can't cry and I can't scream though because I'm a guy and society says I'm supposed to man up and take it like a man but sometimes men cry and God loves the meek so maybe I'm all right. My friends accept me I think but you can never know what they're thinking and maybe yesterday and guitar playing and running and running and running and too much homework and there she is she's smiling again and I feel bad about them and it's looming it's coming it's almost here only three more semesters and what happened to those relationships and where do I go when it's a palette of colors no black and white no right and wrong can't make decisions and all I want to do is write and nobody's listening nobody cares sing her a song nice Sunday morning one of those days again summer no caring just laughing and laughing and my brother's there and the trees sway in the breeze and do you hear this I feel like there's voices in my head they tell me things I'm crazy but you're only crazy if you don't know you're going insane and I ramble and I talk and pray and it goes on and on and on and life is never-ending.

But is it really? Sixteen years has felt like a long time. And there's plenty more where that came from. This is crazy, man. Sixteen. In high school. The future's a blank slate. I can do anything. God has a plan for me. I can do this. I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what I'm doing. But I'm loving every second of it.