I close the door behind me and sink down into my desk chair. Music starts playing on my computer. A sad song. I start crying. No, not only crying, but feeling. Weird how even the smallest things seem to set me off now. It’s getting harder. No one knows how bad it gets except my one friend, and even she doesn’t know how hard it gets. I can’t explain it. Picture despair and misery taking over your body. Picture feeling like you’ll never reach your dreams. Then picture your dreams as something you want so bad you can barely take thinking about how far away it is and how hard it is to get there. Then picture it as something you can’t live without. Then picture feeling like there’s a barrier between you and your parents that makes it even harder to feel okay about your dreams. That’s how I feel right now, as I sit in my room, alone and wishing desperately that I had someone to talk to. But I don’t want just anyone. I want a stranger. Someone I’ve never met before, but know I can trust. I’m like that. Around my family, friends, and the people I love most I’m guarded. Around strangers I can spill out my deepest, darkest feelings with no problem. Maybe that’s why it’s so easy to write this. If I told anyone I knew they’d probably think I had bipolar depression and set me up with a councilor. But I’m not depressed, I’m just unhappy. And that unhappiness is tearing me apart yet at the same time it’s holding me together. I wouldn’t still be this determined to reach my dreams if I didn’t hate this unhappiness so much.

I live in a small town where the tree population outnumbers the people population and so does the bug population. You have to drive at least twenty minutes to get anywhere exciting, including the nearest mall. It’s a nice town, wealthy enough and well off, and I know that’s more than many kids can hope for, but I hate it. I’m not saying I wouldn’t miss it, but I’ve lived here my whole life. Once you’re in, it feels like you can’t get out. It feels like I’m about as far away from my dreams as I can get, not only in what I have to do, but physically. I live 3,000 miles away from Los Angeles, the heart and soul of my dreams. I love acting. I want to act professionally and Los Angeles seems a good place to be, but it’s pretty hard for an average teenager to hop on a plane and fly off to LA to try her luck. I have commitments here. I have school, pets, and a family. I’m a straight A honor student and those grades don’t happen on their own. Neither does the well being of my bird; I have to take care of him too. I can’t just mail my resume to fifteen different agencies and get signed. My dreams cost money, and a lot of it. I can’t just blow my family’s money on my dreams. I wish for a miracle every night and there isn’t one day when acting isn’t in my mind.

I’m still crying. It’s been fifteen minutes now. It’s 10:05 pm. I turn out the light and climb into bed. I feel the tears coming. No, no more tears tonight, I think. I need a bit of luck. Wednesday is my fourteenth birthday. It’s Monday night. I get out of bed and grab an old journal of mine off my bookshelf. That’s what I’ll do, I think. On Wednesday I’ll wake up at three in the morning, because that’s when I was born. I’ll write in the journal and promise myself that before I turn fifteen I will make an effort, more than ever before, to achieve my dreams, or at least get them started. I’ll do something, get signed with an agency, land a commercial, something. I know it sounds crazy, and I won’t say it’s not, but I’m desperate. I need this. At this point I’d sell my soul to get a chance at acting. I need a bit of luck, and I need to make that promise. I owe myself that much. Well, I have my plan. Now I just have to see what happens.

My New Philosophy: Go for it, because you never know where it will get you.