Well it’s currently 4:46 AM here in Texas, and here I sit, at the computer typing this – not exactly sure what to say or even why I felt so compelled to say anything at all. My name is LaKendra and I am 17, I’ll be a senior in just a few days, and I’m having trouble facing that reality. I started typing this in order to tell you about my life, but I’m not even sure where to start. For all my life it has been just me and my mom really, against the rest of our family and the rest of the world it seems. She is an amazing mom, doing everything to the best of her ability. When I was little, however, she was anorexic, and when I was 12, after many years of struggling, she was given two months to live. That entire year I did not have any friends, I was too busy going straight home from school trying to make my mother live. I remember sitting there, watching her try so hard to take her medicine and to eat, and how it would make her so sick, she would cry while lifting a fork or spoon to her mouth. Inevitably this took a toll on my 12 year-old self, and I have been forever changed because of it. I truly feel that I have grown old before my time, and at 17 I have the world on my shoulders. My mom is married now, as of September 2006, but things are still very hard on us – not long back, my step dad had to sell his cell phone so that we would have money for groceries. But despite these conditions, I have goals for myself. I want to go to college next fall, I want to make something of myself. I want to major in Social Work and minor in Child Psychology. The only thing is, we really cant afford it. I work now but with day-to-day needs, that money does not get to be saved. I dream of helping people but I cannot accomplish that dream without help of my own. I want to do something with my life, and I am not afraid to ask for help. Please.