"Who I will someday be, I am now becoming."

Events of today:

I filled my tank with the little money I had left and drove to the one place I knew would make me feel more at home than home itself.  I headed East to the Atlantic Ocean.  As I drove into the old town lined with antique stone buildings, I began to smell my safe place.  The one place where I could go to forget the defeat of the day and the dreadful tomorrow.  So I parked along a sidewalk lined with surfboard racks and seagulls, grabbed a pen and paper, and began my walk to the water. 

I sat on an old wooden bench and instantly became tangled in the beauty of the beach.  It's only Friday and already I want to give up.  Four days of work and four days of what I would imagine hell would look like.  I told myself over and over, "It will get better, just keep going...", but every day, I end feeling defeated and trampled on... not to mention exhausted and dehydrated from all the tears I've cried.

This job is hardly a "job".  It's a new way of life... a completely new schedule.

But didn't I know this before making the twenty hour drive up here?  Aren't I stronger than being afraid to leave my car, and spending five hours a day seeing how blood shot I can get my eyes?  After all, I have been through much worse.

I was forced into independent maturity at the ripe age of ten and now, as a young adult, I'm seeking comfort from a Honda??  Ah, yes... the rubber tires and double cup holders make me feel all fuzzy inside. (side note:  I just witnessed a seagull poop... quite interesting. end side note)

So I guess as much as I'd like to be a bird right now so I could just fly to the middle of the ocean and never have to see another Rhode Island front door again... I can't.  One, because I'm not a bird, and two, because I will not give up.

No matter what happens tomorrow- if I don't make a single sale, or if I cry another ocean, I-will-not-give-up.

Why won't I give up and drive home to safe arms of people who love me, and comfortable situations where I can make people laugh instead of making them angry?  Why don't I go home to spend my summer with friends instead of spending it with my car, and to sleep until noon instead of waking up six days a week at six a.m.?  I could go home and do all the things I want to do instead of giving them up to work eighty hours a week.  Why am I here?

Because.  Because I am not a quitter.  Because I want to make my mother proud.  Because I want to make myself proud.  Because no matter how alone I feel, my father is always in the passenger seat.  Because I want to be a role model.  Because I want to prove my skeptics wrong, and my mom right.  Because I want to push myself and succeed.  Because I want to be a better student.  Because I want to overcome my weaknesses.  Because I want to change.  Because I want to grow. 

I used to run from anything uncomfortable in search of happiness.  But maybe the real joy lies in pushing towards discomfort so hard that the barriers of weakness are forever broken and I will run no more.  

I will not quit.  I will not give up.  I will not run.