I don’t know. I mean, I like what you’re saying, but I suppose that I’m in much the same boat that your mom was.

Sometimes, you need a hero. Sometimes, you need someone to help you on your way out. If I’ve learned anything at all over the last few years, it’s that I am not sufficient. When I put in the effort to try to do something, by myself, it falls apart.

It usually falls apart when it’s time to pay the bill.

In my early 20s, this was especially true when I’d apply to colleges. I got into 4 different schools between the time I was 18–22. Unfortunately, my dad wouldn’t fill out the FAFSA, so he thought I’d be on the hook.

At one school, I even already had a schedule. It looked amazing.

But then came the $17,000 bill and the need to get to New Mexico for classes. At the time, I had no car and no work — and you can probably guess why it took me until I was 24 to get my first job.

Every time I try to do something by myself, I fail. Even now, there comes a point where my strength or will falls apart, or where I just don’t have the money.

Short of winning the lottery, successfully suing a rich person, or having a meteorite with gold or some other valuable metal land in front of me, I really don’t see a way to come up with the kind of money I’d need to do the things I want in life.

And that’s not giving up — that’s accepting that I don’t have the power, the resources, the relationships, the support, and the clout that other, skinny, neurotypical, straight folx have.

Even if things have gotten better lately, they’ve not become good enough to make me normal.

And I know that this sounds completely pathetic. There’s a reason that this song resonates with me so much:

I feel like I wouldn’t like me if I met me . . .