A world rests on my shoulders. Not the world, my world. My world is like a backpack. I never take it off, even when I sleep, because some things in my backpack I like to have in my dreams.

My life started on account of this person I carry. Without her, I wouldn’t be who I am.

Literally.

Without her egg, I would only have 23 chromosomes. Technically, I wouldn’t exist.

This person is my mom, who taught me the majority of what I know. True, I learned a lot from experience, but if she hadn’t told me not to do it, I probably wouldn’t have been as tempted to.

To record experiences, I carry a memory device. This holds all of my memories of everything I have experienced thus far in my life. When I was a toddler, I was using a floppy disk, but a new innovation, the thumb drive, allows me to store more memories with higher quality.

I still have the memory from preschool when I got a piece of gravel stuck in my ear. I remember a boy from Mothers’-Day-Out; he was from Holland. He smelled like maple syrup. I remember the time my dad took me for a ride on his motorcycle with balloons tied to the back. In kindergarten I had a classmate from Czechoslovakia; ironically, her name was America. She used to eat the glue. I remember my best friend from elementary school, Lillian. She liked turtles. I remember the Rolling Stones concert with my dad in Birmingham. I was six. I wore a leather mini-skirt. I remember my first kiss. It was behind my dad’s jeep. His name was Richard. I remember in eighth grade when I made the cheerleading squad, I cried tears of disbelief. I remember when my life suddenly changed. My brother and sister, whom I looked up to, had been kicked out of school. Now it was my turn to go away to boarding school.

As I always do when I pack, I put in one extra pair of socks. Although I might never need them, I brought them along to remind me that change is a good thing. Sure, you may like the socks you are wearing right now; I liked where I was. But when life gets stinky, sometimes you have to change. Dad said boarding school was a good opportunity, but I didn’t believe him.

He took me to the admissions office at Webb, the school my brother and sister used to go to, where I sat and listened to people tell me things I already knew. They put contracts in front of me and told me to sign them. I read every word on every page before I signed them. I didn’t trust these people with my signature. They had sent my brother and sister home.

When I got settled in the dorm, I met some girls. I didn’t trust them either. Except one. My brother had told me about her.

Starr.

Her smile glowed like one.

Now she wakes up with my finger in her nose every morning.

She’s my secret diary. I write daily entries in her ear. I can write down anything because I know no one else will see it. They don’t know where I hide my key.

Before I left home, my batteries were running low. Now I carry spare ones. They always come in handy. I don’t carry them for my portable CD player or Gameboy; I carry them for the times I feel I cannot go on. When I trudge along, feeling as though my back is going to give out under the weight of my world and knowing I cannot stop for the fear I won’t get started again, I keep going. When I finally collapse and the weight of my world gets heavier ever second, I roll over to my stomach, open the hatch, and switch out the batteries. I am currently using Duracell, and going strong, all day long.

My batteries keep me going, but they don’t hold me down. This is why I carry some concrete. This helps me stand firm by what I believe in. If you don’t stand by your beliefs, what is the point in believing in them?

My stepfather Frank taught me how to plant my feet in concrete.

He married my mom and dad. Then he just married my mom. I used to go in his office when I was little and eat Redhots until my mouth was on fire. He’s my role model. He was there with Martin Luther King Jr. He drank out of the "colored" water fountain. Frank is wise and compassionate and funny. He stands in concrete too. I want to be like him when I grow up.

He is the only person I can think of who has never doubted me. Even my very own mother and father and brother and sister have hesitated to believe that I will succeed at what I am passionate about.

If I have a question, Frank has the answer. If I fail to have confidence in myself, Frank always has enough for the two of us. When illness overtakes me and I stay home from school, Frank comes over during his lunch break to give me a junior bacon cheeseburger and some company. When I have boy trouble, he reassures me if it happens again he will break the boy’s legs with a baseball bat. "Don’t worry, Maggie, they’re only boys. They only see what’s on the outside," he says.

That’s why I keep some deep water with me, for all the shallow people who judge books by their covers. When I overhear someone saying, "I want to marry a rich man" or "I would never go out with a fat person" or something of that stereotypical nature, I can say, "Come on in, the water’s fine!" When they reluctantly slide in, they will see the true beauty in everyone and everything.

Although Monkey has a hole in his head, and Petunia’s ear is falling off, I see them for what’s on the inside . . . stuffing. Monkey sleeps with his Velcro hands wrapped around my neck. Petunia sleeps tucked under my left arm. She has volunteered her synthetic fur to soak up my tears. Over the years her pink coat has become gray with the saltiness of them. Petunia and Monkey are one of the reasons I don’t take off my world at night. I cannot sleep without them. They don’t let the bad dreams get to me.

I don’t have enough space in my backpack for televisions and video games and make-up. This is why I carry a pot. I put my world in the pot and bring it to a boil. Everything I don’t need is turned to vapor and disappears into the ionosphere. I am glad I don’t have them in my world anymore. They make your brain rot. I don’t have room for a decaying organ either.

The biggest part of my load doesn’t go in my backpack. It is love. I carry it in my heart.