privacy.

When I was sixteen years old, I wrote of my birth in June. I was born in April, regardless, that means not so much anymore. Maybe when I was sixteen it should have meant a little bit more. I went on to assume that because it didn't, I was maturing at an alarmingly fast pace, faster than all of my friends. Because I was maturing so rapidly intellectually, what I was doing seemed quite acceptable. After all, I was a grown up. A forty year old teenager, I would not so eloquently put it in furiously scratched diary entries. Each entry was hardly legible, just in case my mother decided to have a look. If she was able to decipher what I had written, she would have read a series of notes that I had placed around certain areas of my life. They were specifically written for her, because as it would turn out, a manic sixteen year old who really is forty doesn't have much privacy.

You could call me paranoid, but every now and then something will be said and my mother's eyes will lock with mine. Her lips will begin to move, but they stop, before defeat. And I, small smirk glowing on my face, would feel the weight of every burden being lifted from me, detaching one tiny follicle at a time. The greatest lesson I learned in all of my life is to give yourself a reason to deserve a second look.

It very well saved my life.