There’s this girl; I know her very well. She sits near me in my classes, and I’ve known her for a while. To describe her, I would say she is odd and confusing, but also very caring and compassionate. She is sometimes very quiet, other times not. When I see her with her friends, she is the polar opposite of the classroom girl I see. She is wild and rambunctious and willing to cackle at a joke her friend made. In the hallways, she keeps to herself; bound down to the floor with all the weight of her work. She makes no eye contact, but casts the occasional glare or stink-eye at someone acting “out of line.” She is very disciplined, but doesn’t like to think so. She is not only weighed down by work, but by the anxiety she feels for the confusingness of the world; the thoughts that trouble her daily. She feels alone, ugly, and drug down.

You my wonder why I know this girl so well. Well, she is me.