That's all I can do. I'll keep at it and hope it gets better.

No," mom says, looking at me in the eyes. "What's a triumph is that you woke up this morning and decided to LIVE. THAT'S a triumph. that's what you did today.

I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad.

I wasn't going to have enough money to pay for a Good Lifestyle, which meant I'd feel ashamed, which meant I'd get depressed, and that was the big one because I knew what that did to me: it made it so I wouldn't get out of bed, which led to the ultimate thing—homelessness. If you can't get out of bed for long enough, people come and take your bed away.

I've had good moments scattered since then, times when I thought I was better, but that was the last day I felt triumphant.

I know a lot of famous people didn't do well at school, like James Brown; he dropped out in fifth grade to be an entertainer, I respect that... but that's not going to be me. I'm not going to be able to do anything but work as hard as possible all the time and compete with everyone I know all the time to make it.

They always said on TV you could do anything you wanted, but here I was trying to do something and it wasn't working. I would never be able to do it.