Weakness and strengths. Everyone human on this planet- in fact, scratch that. Every living thing on this planet has strengths and weaknesses. Plants weakness is that they can’t move and protect themselves. Well, some of them can. On the bright side, they make their own food.

In people, weaknesses and strengths are a little more complicated. In humans, these aspects are determined by each person. By their personalities, what they’ve grown up with, what they’ve gone through. And although a lot of people would tell you that I’m not the happiest person they’ve ever met, but not depressed either, they don’t know what’s happened in my life.

My brother was in an almost fatal car accident and my dad has practically been on Heaven’s doorstep at least twice. He recently had two liver transplants in the course of two months. These events have led to my biggest weakness that I have yet to find, even though there are many more of them, some of them almost significant.

When I was younger, I always had fears. Don’t we all? I was always afraid that my house would burn down in the middle of the night. Or what if someone came in to rob the house and my parents wouldn’t wake up? Wasn’t there a monster or a person under my bed, in my closet, outside my door, on the other side of the window? And yes, those fears used to haunt me, and still do, but not as much as these new fears do.

See, I stay home a lot while my parents go out to breakfast or shopping or whatever it is that they do to occupy their weekends. It’s fun to stay alone if you push away the feeling that there’s always someone behind the couch, waiting until you’re not expecting anything to pounce on you. Anyways, my parents always call me when they’re on their way home and tell me where they are. I time out their ride home subconsciously and expect them home around that time. Sure, I give them a little leeway, but when it gets to be too much time, I panic.

Where are they? What happened? They were in a car crash, I know it. The phone’s going to ring any second and it’s going to be the hospital. I have to call my brother, Ryan. He’ll help me. And then I’ll stay at his house. What if they’re gone forever? Did I remember to kiss them goodbye this morning? What’s going on?

And it’s not until my front door opens that I relax. They’re fine. They’re always fine. But that doesn’t stop me from panicking. Then there are those times that I have to call my dad after school and he’s home alone. Only I don’t know whether he’s home or out. So I call the house. But there’s no answer. So I call his cell phone. No answer. So I try both again, but there’s still no answer.

Is he hurt? Was there a car crash? Did something happen with his liver or anything else? Is he okay? Am I going to come home to find him passed out on the floor? Is he in the hospital again? What if he doesn’t make it this time?

Every time he calls me back or comes to pick me up like he’s supposed to and everything’s fine. But I always fear the day that everything will not be fine and I’ll be left alone in the world. And what am I supposed to do then? That’s what scares me the most. And it stops me from doing things that I might do if I wasn’t so paranoid. So when people ask my biggest fear, I tell them that it’s spiders or car accidents or something that would sound like a normal teenage girl. And no one will ever know what haunts me day in and day out. I don’t want people to think I’m crazy.