How can anyone be expected to be passive and submissive and follow what is required of them when their very own nature defies it? I did that for a long time, you know. I did that for at least 10 years. It wasn't easy, but from the beginning I was only a child and I wanted to please everyone, I wanted to make everyone happy with me, and I thought that if I could only try, I would somehow gradually become who they wanted me to be. It was the only thing I ever knew, apart from who my parents were.

People churn out so much junk in order to finally produce something beautiful and wonderful. Sometimes it's just cleansing to get rid of some stuff and try to start anew in some way. I've done that with my old journals. From time to time I go through them and I'll rip out a page or two and shred them into teeny tiny pieces with my own hands and throw them away. It's not like they held anything remotely important. Sometimes it was a doodling here, an angry scribbling such as "F--k this!" there. Sometimes it was a string of incoherent thoughts mashed together. I've whittled it all down to a boxful, for now. And that's from 6th grade to senior year.