Take my photo off the wall...

I'm riding in a charter bus filled with excited teenagers. My stomach is queasy and I'm bubbling over, but to keep my cool I'm reading Cosmo. "Fish Guts make your hair shiny," Sam says, denying that fact that she, too, is nervous for her race the following day. Bus activities vary but no one stats the obvious: We're scared as Hell. Marquette beats our butts every year, and really there is little chance that we will even come close. As I try to put it out of my mind, I start to drift to sleep. Maybe it'll give my tense body some much needed rest.

I wake up, sweating, beneath my blue flannel sheets and quickly shut my eyes, hoping that the reality I've woken up too is the dream, and the dream reality.

I slap my own face--I need to live my life now, my life here.
I have to stop asking, "What if...?"