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Atlas

I went to Greensboro this weekend. I was not in a hurry to get there, because I had a very important Calculus test to prepare for the following week, but it was my niece's fifth birthday party. I had a good time taking pictures of my niece and the other kids. It was unusually warm outside, and it was being held at a natural science center that also had a zoo behind it. After cutting the cake and the usual birthday celebrations, we walked around and looked at the animals, I mostly payed attention to the incredible colors I saw outside, the fall was in peak.

That night I met a girl I shortly dated a few years back for a drink at the bar around the corner from my older sister's house. We talked quite a bit, but she seemed extremely distressed. She said that she was tired, mostly from always having to support her family, from raising a daughter by herself. Her daughter pretty much lives in the ghetto, and has two kids with different fathers, she also never graduated from high school. We talked for a while, I drank some local beer that was a little more bitter than my usual Budweiser and listened to her confess how she felt completely brokenhearted and frustrated with the fact that she has never had anyone else she could depend on. We ended up going back to her house and watching TV and mostly forgetting about our conversation at the bar.

When we went to sleep together she laid next to me and didn't say anything, except I could hear her crying. I tried to kiss her and she told me 'no'. I knew that she didn't want me there for any other reason than to be held. I told her that she would be fine, and that she was tougher than she thought. I told her that she couldn't tire herself out over holding the world up on her shoulders. I used to worry too much, and once my mom told me that I shouldn't try to be Atlas. I couldn't hold myself responsible if the world fell apart. I woke up the next day and she told me that we would see each other again soon.

I feel that sometimes I am in the same place, where everyone needs my help and I feel like sometimes I don't care and don't try. I stopped feeling bad about this a long time ago.

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