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Everyone falls down sometimes, but it feels like I’ve been falling my whole life. I haven’t had a particularly bad or challenging life, but it’s been hard enough for a young kid. My life seemed to start pulling at the seams from a young age. First my sister left; she was young but she was like a mom to me. She raised me when our mom was too sick to even work. However that didn’t hit me as hard as my parents separating. At five years old I didn’t understand what was happening and why daddy had to leave. Suddenly at nine years old we had to move, I had to leave behind everything I had ever known because we couldn’t afford our house anymore. I was told to look at it as a fresh start, an opportunity for something else and I tried. I spent a lot of my time alone, my parents were stuck somewhere in their little worlds and I only saw my dad every other weekend. I didn’t do much; I was never one of the little girls in a cute little “tigers” soccer jersey or pink tights and a leotard going to dance class like so many of my friends. I mostly kept to myself and out of the way. Ten years after the initial separation, my parents finally filed for divorce. The arguments were heated and when my dad came to get me for the weekend I was often told to go right back upstairs and try not to listen. They argued about papers, money, the house, but worst of all they argued about me. I was hard at fourteen and I heard about every little detail about the divorce. How much money, why they had fought that day, even down to who would get the antique European cost, and child support. When I was in fourth grade my mom met a man who was just like me. We got along like peas and carrots; he was even around more than my dad. Every violin recital, school event, and doctors appointment he was there. We were like a real family, going to diner, movies, the arcade just about anything. However, my freshman year of high school things started to slip again and he changed. At first I thought it was my fault that he was so different, I couldn’t figure out what happened. My life was tearing at the seams; I swore I could see the ugly tangled mess beneath feigned smiles. When the fighting started at first I only noticed their silent treatments towards each other. Then later I noticed the broken thins around the house, they never touched each other but threw their anger at the walls. To the point where he had to wear a purple cast for his arm. I tried to block out the noise but my mom seemed to want the whole world to know about his infidelity. The only positive outcome was that my mom and I were actually bonding again; it had been years since we could sit down and gently talk without daggers of frustration aimed at each other’s throats. I just wish that getting along didn’t involve a crying middle aged woman leaning completely on an unstable crutch, I could barely handle myself. The period of quiet didn’t last long before my mom and I were fighting again; I broke and was hospitalized for an illness. Nothing seemed to be going right and I felt like I was barely treading water. I had been contemplating escape but I was afraid that I couldn’t run from my problems. I felt stuck, and then one day in English we started studying Emerson and Thoreau. Their Ideals were more about individuals living up to their own potential and overcoming obstacles. It was a lecture I had heard a hundred times before in a thousand different ways, by teachers, parents, brothers and sister. This time was different though, my mind, body and soul absorbed every word, letter, and period of “self-reliance” an essay written by Emerson. It made me realize that I did and still do have the ability to do better, that I can do anything and that the only limits that I have are the ones I place on myself. If I allow myself, I can be great, because I am the most important person in my life. I am the only person who will always be there for me and that I have to rely on and will live with for the rest of my life. After reading that essay I turned my life around, I cut our negative influences, concentrated on more important things and I’ve even gone as far as making a list of things I want to accomplish. This November I will be starting on my scuba certification and sooner than that I’ll be working on mixed martial arts class, and sign language. At the top of that list however, is going to college and getting a degree, I have found things that I am passionate about and I live for them and by them; most importantly I live for myself and I will die on my own terms, not the worlds.