I know there's no popularity contest, and *certainly* I should long since given up the hope of being treated as something resembling an equal, but evidently hope springs eternal. And because of this, I keep getting smacked, over and over again, and keep looking around and trying to figure out what it is that makes me just so unlovable, and unwanted that I get kicked around and ignored unless it's convenient.

This has been an incredibly difficult year for me. I keep hoping that somehow, eventually, she's going to love me just for me. I should know better and I kept trying, looking for something that resembled some kind of family. I guess the truth is that I'm always going to be the not-good-enough one. The one who was difficult and troubled, so wasn't worth the hassle. And in the end, the one that wasn't even useful at all, when the model she wanted in the first place came back.

Maybe she doesn't care when I ask and ask for someone to visit me, and no one ever comes unless there is some secondary reason to come here. In five years, the only time she's ever come to town was when something else happened to coincide with work or other business, and every time I asked there was never enough money for her to afford to visit. But she can afford to go to other cities to visit the one she wanted, can even afford to go across the country to visit her, stopping all over visiting all kinds of things...but not me. And I'd been asking for months.

I feel small, and broken, and not worth anything. The way I always end up feeling when I think about her. I have enough trouble keeping my head above water, without this constant feeling of drowning from all of the things that are lacking in me that makes me useless.

And the thing that hurts the most is that no one will ever care, and I'll continue to go on crying and nothing will ever change, until I can just walk away and be done with it entirely.