That made me happy. That was my Anchor.

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.

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.

But some people have to get lucky just to live. And I never knew I could make anybody lucky.

I wanted to tell people, "My depression is acting up today" as an excuse for not seeing them, but I never managed to pull it off.

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.

It’s tough to get out of bed; I know that myself. You can lie there for an hour and a half without thinking anything, just worrying about what the day holds and knowing that you won’t be able to deal with it.