Feeling terribly self-absorbed now.

I think I'm entitled to that, for a while. I will not submit to guilt again--not this time. It's one time too many. I've been as good as I know how, and I don't think I'm asking for much at all. I wonder if my parents have thought of asking around to see if they can find a more docile and tame little child. At my age, no less. Perhaps several years ago I ought to have rebelled like a normal kid, shown the tiniest streak of independence.

I resent that the moment I open my mouth to argue, the words die in my throat. It happens all the time. I see my own reasons crumble at their feet, lame, unsatisfactory, immature, selfish... articulated in incoherent, fragmented, awkward little phrases.

"You really think so? What about us, then? Did we give you everything just to see you like that?"

I struggle to answer. The words will not come. Why can I not scream? Why can I not raise my voice? Why do the words-- boiling for so long, so long, within me, rehearsed over and over in the head-- why do they not come?

I choke on words I cannot speak, and doubt consumes me-- doubt, a feeling more familiar and more powerful than self-righteousness, doubt, that declares that I'm being selfish, that trumpets my guilt, that gleefully pulls at my confidence--tearing it down strip by strip. The tears are but those of sheer frustration, more at myself than at anybody else in the world.

If I cannot fight for what I want then I do not deserve it.

If I ever get my way it will only be because of sheer sympathy, and that I cannot bear-- there is no glory in it. It will be but another form of emotional blackmail--the same thing that is stopping me from saying anything in the first place.

I have never resented myself as much as now.