Oh how tired I am.

I'm turning another year older soon. That's another added to my added to my slightly-less-than-a-score years. 17 to be exact. I am mortified at the fact that I'm being forced to grow older while I dig my heels in the ground to preserve my childhood, and try to retain that reluctant journey to walk out of it. I've never been so tired in my life. I've been working my butt off and it's still not enough. My parents still yell at me, my teachers still shake their heads at me, my sister continues to begrudge me, and I try stand above it. Usually I am bullet-proof against what others say, and even do, but fire enough times, and even bulletproof starts to tire.

Home has stopped feeling like home. I feel lost, but I don't to be lost. My dreams seem farther away, but I can't stop reaching for them. The road seems longer, and there are no rest stops, so I try to rush to the end. I feel like screaming into a tub of ice water, but I've gotta breath easy. My friends are an electronic blip away, yet the distance is starting to get to me. Here, at this new school, I've become my old self; I've started to be with people who don't really take to me, as I not them. I wish I could land in a cool place and cry "Sanctuary!" but I know that I would be wasting time in sitting. Life's moving along without me, and in turn I'm being dragged through the years.

As though to accentuate the move forward, Life sent me an early birthday present. A hard drive I keep separate from the rest, and uniquely with my own personal files and memories, was essentially wiped clean due to a drop of about a foot. I lost 7 years of memory. Every homework assignment, every picture, every song, every scrap of music, stories, memories, conversations, people... EVERYTHING. I lost it all. Life seemed to say, "Let it go." though all the while it felt as a punishment a parent gives a child, "You want to stay young? Let me take 7 years of your life." I know it's not that intensely put, but I feel like memories were wiped away. like things one would lose in a fire.

It's easy to say...

"I'm tired."