Once upon a time, when I thought I was dying of hollowness it was Shonen manga that saved me. I got lost in the world of growing stronger and striving for your dreams like a child all over again. But soon (but luckily not too soon) I saw a flaw in the formula. Every hero gets stronger when fighting for someone else's sake. I was already done with that. I thought. There was no one I could find that I wanted to protect. Certainly there were many who were worth protecting, but none more important than myself. I had already seen the uselessness and disappointment that comes from living for someone else. And so I resolved to be stronger for my own sake, to stand up alone with need of no one else. Because standing on my own has always been my greatest pride.

Earthquakes are scary things. The time there was a fairly large one here about a year and a half ago I was alone. Asleep. (It was 5am!) I screamed. A lot. And wanted to go home. But I didn't call anyone and say so, no matter how badly I wanted to. I remember a really small one that came in the middle of the night (around 2:30) my first year vividly too. Not because it woke me up, because it woke my "wifey" up and she got scared and called me. When the big one hit last month I was at school. I felt kind of sick, but there wasn't time to think about being scared. There were kids with me, I had to be brave for them. Of course, I didn't consciously decide that. It just happened. I like it better that way. Somehow I can think more clearly if I'm worrying about calming someone else down instead of myself.

It's always been curious to me the way certain parts of my personality come out reflexively in reaction to others. There was this girl I used to hate (or rather, there used to be this girl that I hated, I haven't stopped, she just moved away.) and when she would say dramatic things attempting to excite or upset me I would become more and more logical and flat as the conversation went on. Without evening meaning to. It just happened. I know there's always been a part of me that wants to protect someone else, it used to be my little brother, or my mom, or sometimes even my dad. Then it was Nichole for a looong time, and then most recently "Oberi-kun" & "Bakura-chan". But they're grown up (and I've abandoned them to look out for number one anyway) and I thought things were better that way.

But maybe not...

Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid.