I am a pretty low-maintenance girl. I don't spend hours on my hair, and hardly everwear make-up. All I need to survive is my favorite Chapstick and some clothes. MyChapstick is always on me; it weighs less then an ounce and fits nicely in all mypockets. Also, for my almost nonexistent hair emergencies, I carry two to fourbobby pins at all times, each weighing about a gram. When I carry my bag with meI have an entire first-aid kit: bandages, cream, peroxide, gauze, tonguedepressors, sewing needles, fishing line, iodine, Advil, Band-Aids of all sizesand shapes, scissors, things used for small-time surgery. Sarah learned once at aWendy's fast-food restaurant that what I had on hand was most needed.

Ona normal school day an assortment of books and necessities can be found in mybag, including a calculator, textbooks, folders, papers, food. My bag on a goodday weighs three pounds, on a bad day, up to seven.

My mind is a maze ofcomplications and thoughts that can't always be expressed. I have emotions thatcan't always escape. I try to release them once a week at my therapist's office.Thoughts about my family, what's going on in our lives, and how they are allscrewing up mine. I carry with me a feeling of worry, an uncertainty of what thefuture will hold. At times I don't even understand what I am going through. Myemotional thoughts often overtake my concentration so I sit there in a trancetrying to focus. I am often held captive at the mercy of such thoughts whichmakes concentrating on simple projects, like reading, much harder. I carry a keensense of sarcasm, and a need to be around people who are not complete imbeciles.I do not carry a high tolerance for annoying people. I carry love for people Iknow, and trust. I carry respect for people who deserve it. I also carry acertain disrespect for people who I feel do not deserve to be respected becauseof their actions.

I carry fears, fears that I may not know what tomorrowmay bring, fears of rejection, that I'm not good enough. I fear things I don'tknow about; scary movies chill me to the core, even simple ones. I carry theskills to overcome these fears.

I carry this all every day with a head ofshort blond hair, a small oval face with blue-green eyes, a small tight mouth, astraight pointy nose, broad shoulders, stubby muscular legs, all for a grandtotal of 110 pounds. I carry this package on two flip-flop-tanned feet, one witha weak ankle ready to give out at any moment. I carry myself with a mission,mostly of getting from one class to the other. When I am in the hall, I am in aworld of my own. I see the people around me merely as obstacles that I need toavoid so as not to get hurt.