You know you're strange when your friends look up to you as evidence of God's highest form of love and your own parents think of you as them-except-younger.

The few friends I've got--the online ones--seem to think of me as a kind older sister type who's in on some great cosmic joke with a very bizarre punchline. Maybe I'm the punchline. They seem to think that I'm here to cheer the world. And that I am.

But my dad! He spits on any goal that involves spreading love, peace, and harmony. If it won't earn you any money, he ain't in on it. (I once told them I wanted to be a writer if I HAD to be anything; they rolled their eyes and said, "No, save that for your spare time, and pick something that'll make you money NOW.")

It's like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. To my nice little Intarweb friends, I'm a lovable chick with just a few little hiccups in the gears of her brain. An example of life's rich pageant. But to my parents, I'm The Golden Child, who must now live up to what her brother failed at.

I hate being the second one. I'm sick of living up to expectations and being the Child That Everyone Wants or The Sarcastic Witty Bitch. Lately, I've become more of a hermit; I stay in my room most of the day, or I go outside and read a book and then seclude myself in my room when my parents come home. I just don't like communicating with them. They don't listen to what I want out of life; they think that I want the same things out of life that they want (namely, money and everything that it can by--material happiness--which I have no interest in at all). I've tried and tried to tell them that I've got my own dreams. I want to write! I want to teach! I want to inspire! I want to do it all for free! But they'll hear none of it. They don't back me up at all. They dismiss it and continue to plot my life without me.

And that's part of why I've got to get out of here. So that I can become the real me instead of The Golden Child. I don't wanna be golden. I wanna be silver, or selenium, or rutherfordium or some lowly element like that.

I took some "Which Pink Floyd Member Are You?" tests earlier and I got Syd Barrett on every one of them. I hope this doesn't presage something about my future.

The really sad thing about these random little emo-crises that I have is that I don't have anybody to help me through. When I mention it to my intarwebz-friends, they take up my parents' side, saying It's For My Own Good that I earn as much money as I possibly can and stay in a big-arse house with twenty cars and twelve children.

I wish--just once--that someone would take my side and join me in my work!

Ahh well. I suppose that's what imaginary friends are for, nya?