Optimism is just a condition they haven't diagnosed symptoms for yet.

Remaining positive and happy around here takes too much of my energy. It's the searching, then the exploring, then the convincing - that's the hardest part; telling myself that this is what is going to change things. Is lying to yourself as bad as lying to others?

I look in the mirror a lot often lately, and I see great things, just not with me.

I'm so fake. I come home sometimes and just look around me. Look at these building - this apartment complex. Look at these people I live around. Mediocre, upper-class nobodies. They where their lives on their clothes, their cars, and their jobs. They may have had dreams once, too. They might have had magic behind their grey eyes, too. They are on the same narrow, safe, predictable path as me, only miles and miles ahead. Look at this apartment and these nice things. Who am I? Why did I buy all this? Why did I feel the need to push myself into this caste? This place is so removed and distant, it makes me feel like I'm dissapearing.

Getting to the top is easy, but it's really lonely up there.

I'm such a success, aren't I? I made my decision; I went to college, I studied hard. I sacrificed - I wasted. I took my over-priced hand-fed education too seriously. I explained away sleepless nights of confusion and doubt - for what? the comfort of this? the reward of THIS? Regret. There neeeds to be a stronger word for that. I'd give almost anything to do it again, to do it right - to not feed myself lies.

Winning only matters if you wanted the prize in the first place.

My job. You know how many people didn't get it? A lot. I cared once about that, I rode on that high for a bit. But I can't live off that. What is wrong with me? This is supposed to be what I wanted so badly for so long; this was my ultimate goal! Damnit! that was supposed to be IT! Where is my happiness now? Where is MY comfort?!?

I'm such a success, can't you tell by this smile on my face?

I make fifty-three thousand dollars a year and I don't care if I shouldn't tell anyone, you know why? Because in a few months I'll be just a broke as the I was in college. Just as much as the next person. The only difference is, I'll look better doing it. With a crisp wardrobe and respectable lifestyle, I'll smile with every keystroke as I throw my money at countless student loans and bills. Then I'll spend more on drinking alone on weeknights at a bar or restaurant because something tells me it's what I can do, I've earned something haven't I? If I live like I'm no better off than I was before I can't lie to myself.

My ideals of success lay shattered at my feet and I can't come to terms with it. I desperately, franticly, tried to put it back together. And I did. But the pieces didn't fit.

No...

When I was done I realized they never fit at all. And it's then that I realized that only from far away it looked like something I wanted, something beautiful and right.

All I have left are my bleeding hands and knees, but I won't lick these wounds.

I've heard of curing broken hearts, but what about broken dreams? What do you do when you find out that very thing you believed in, the single idea that comforted in your countless times of need, that pushed you through the hardest most trying times of your life, turned out to be a lie.

I balanced my entire life around this moment but now there's nothing there. Everything is just falling now and I'm being pulled apart trying to move in every direction, trying to catch the pieces and find new homes for them.

I need something new to believe in.