Suck It Up. This Is

I Didn't Like Being Alone. Being Alone Was Slightly Better Than Having To Deal With People, That's All. Or So I'd Convinced Myself.

I Think That Ties In With Issues Of Identity As Well - That Sometimes There Are Parts Of Us We Want To Hide, And Then There's Other Times We Say, "you Know What? Nope. Done Hiding That Part."

Some People Do Want To Stand On The Rooftop And Scream Out Their Story. Others Are Cowering In The Corner, Or Sitting With A Blank Face In Class, And Not Knowing How To Tell Their Story.

She Holds Herself With Such Reserve. She Smiles, But The Smile Doesn't Reach Her Eyes, Even In The Company Of The Girls She's Chosen To Eat With. Why? I Have No Clue, And I Really Don't Want To Spend My Time Worrying About It. But My Brain Pushes At The Question Anyway. Why Are People Aloof? Because They Don't Want To Let Others In. Why Don't They Want To Let Others In? Well, Sometimes Because They're Shy, And Sometimes Because They're Convinced Of Their Own Superiority. But Those Aren't The Only Reasons. Sometimes It's Because Thay Have Something To Hide.

I've Written A Lot Of Novels For Teens And Tweens ... But I'd Never Really Tackled The North Carolina Side Of Me. And It's So Strong And So Important, And Yet I Hadn't Acknowledged It. And So One Of The Things I Wanted To Do In "shine" Is Take That On.