Security.

I've been having a really hard time lately. I'm fine for two or three weeks at a time, appreciative of my friends, getting through my classes, seeing things optimistically.

Then, it seems something small - real or imagined - comes and shakes my confidence. It's like I spend a few weeks fitting bricks together to make the walls of my house, to provide some warmth and safety, and then the big bad wolf comes and blows my house down again.

Sometimes it's unnecessary stress: thinking I'm going to fail my classes, freaking out about how little money I have, feeling like I'm not achieving enough. But sometimes its something physical like getting sick, saying something hurtful to someone, or absorbing a life change.

I am at the emotionally tumultuous phase again. My dad just got a job in Indiana and he and my mom will move there in the next few months. I knew this was coming and I thought I could handle it rationally. Things change and I haven't lived at home for 2 1/2 years. It's not really my home anymore. But when I get stressed out here, at least I know there is some stability, something I knew for so long, only three hours away. Where will I go when I get homesick?

Part of getting married is establishing a home of your own. But it's a phase, a gradual pulling away, getting comfortable as an adult, with a life of your own.

But I feel so much like a child. And I feel like I'm losing my home.

Middle class children do well in school because they experience relative stability in their personal lives. In many cases, they have parents with steady jobs, emotional support, and food on the table. To be successful as people we need security. I keep trying to lean on things, and they fall out from under me. That's why I can't seem to manage my life. College is very hard sometimes. And life is not all fluff and dreams and success stories.

I need to depend on something, on someone who is infallible.