Romanticize.

"You're romanticizing it," says my mother. But what if I'm not? What if I know the dangers ahead of my life? What if the only thing keeping me from falling was "romanticizing" it?

I'm scared of the world that I will soon enter. I know that out there - where people pay taxes and work and fall - life is nowhere easy. There will be no one to hold your hand, tell you what to do, or how to succeed. I know that my fantasies won't play out like I want to.

But have you, mother, ever thought that I see and think the way I do because it's the only thing keeping me going? Have you ever thought that I can't sleep sometimes because I'm terrified that I'll fail and end up sleeping on the streets?

I don't know your mind and you don't know mind. So please, don't say that word. Don't say it... Don't deride me.