To feel comfortable in this room, to feel valued and cherished, are some of the tallest mountains surrounding me.  I want to be happy and loved and respected, more than anything, and the space I occupy is pushing the boundaries that hold my sanity.  I am part of a community in which I thrive without individual realization of my worth.  I am so much more than anyone expects me to be, even more than I myself can fathom, but it’s the actualization of my negative psyche that forces me frozen.  All I see is darkness, but intellectually I know that there must be light in order for darkness to exist.  One cannot be without the other, no matter how distant they may be from one another.  Looking in the mirror, the reflection of my self-conscious physical form, is overtaken by the knowledge that when you peel back the layers surrounding what it is that I feel I should be, my purest self resides- and that self is everything I hope to illustrate to the world.  I am pulling her out of the darkness inch by inch.