I must admit that my whole life, up until recently, I have been a horrible listener. I realize now that there were so many people in my life that tried to help me, but instead of listening I chose to do what I wanted. It's not always bad to do what you want, but I think lots of people, including myself, are controlled by our emotions, and we fail to use our brain as often as we should. I ran away from home when I was 18 to live with my boyfriend despite my moms warnings that it was not a good idea. I dropped out of high school even though I was only 9 weeks away from graduating, and I left my job. I thought it was what I wanted at first, until I smartened up. If you can call it smartening up, it may have just been desperation. But I've become proactive in my dreams to be happy. I was just absorbed in my depression, but I kind of got tired of that. It's boring being alone, and so I refuse to be alone, because I know I deserve to have lots of friends, and to have an awesome boyfriend, and to have a big house, and a great job, and an education.

I'll give you a little background information on myself: I have 2 younger brothers and we were really close. We're not close anymore, and I regret it so much, which is actually what caused me to slip into depression. My whole family has always been so close, and one day when visiting my mom after I ran away, I walked in on my youngest brother crying because he felt that our family was torn apart. He was 15 at the time. And my other younger brother said that he always thought we'd be friends forever, until I ran away. He was 16. I was the oldest child (18 at the time), and I just never really appreciated all that I had. I always wanted more, and finally when I turned 18 I was able to get what I thought I wanted, and now I'm living here with my boyfriend whom treats me like shit, and I don't think me and brothers will ever be the same.

Even though there's all this I've decided I'm ready to get my life back together. The other night I went on a date with this really nice guy I knew from high school and I had loads of fun, and starting soon I'm enrolling in Job Corps to earn my high school degree and finish a job training course in Culinary Arts. I'm also hoping to make friends while I'm there.

The longer you wait to turn your life around the harder it is. I think everyone should think about what would make them happy in the long run instead of running on impulsive emotional action. That can get you in a lot of trouble. I used to have the belief that I should live my life one day at a time because I could die at any moment. More realistically, however, more people live every day than die, and life is not short, it's very very long, so it's time to start thinking in the future. That isn't to say that you shouldn't stop to smell the roses as often as possible. Life deserves to be lived in the moment, but you should always have a plan.