Riding in the car with my mother, we have a tendency to deeply analyze and discuss our personal issues.

Right after we wake up, on the way home from school, on the way to work, after work, after counseling, going through the drive-through, every time we get in the car, we have some sort of heart to heart session.

The most recent matters have pertained to my quick descent into juniorism, a sort of pre-senioritis that is having a drastic effect on my desire and motivation to do things I don’t want to do. Whether that be going to school all five days a week, going to choir on Mondays, doing my algebra homework, going to bed at a decent time, and really everything that I’m supposed to do but don’t enjoy.

It is either juniorism, or I have just realized that everything I’ve been forcing myself to do the past 16 years of my life is absolute nonsense because I haven’t been doing it for my benefit, only because I feel I need to, and everything I ever thought was important to my future really isn’t that significant at all.

I really hope it’s juniorism. Because if it’s not, it’s a grand epiphany at an entry door of my life that it doesn’t feel as if I’m ready for.

Sadly, I do believe this is the case.

In the car, every time I cry about how hard it all is, how I don’t know if I can do it, that I’m scared of disappointing her, my mom responds with, “As long as you are doing your best, Kati, I am more than proud of you.”

It wasn’t until the last week that I looked at her for the first time and said, “Mom, I’m not doing my best. You shouldn’t be proud of me right now.”

I didn’t know that that wasn’t necessarily true, that my best had changed from the time I was a manic doer-of-things-I-don’t-enjoy to now.

I didn’t understand that my best is not the same everyday, that I wake up in a different mood with a different mindset with a different goal every single morning.

Getting up to face the day is the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do some days, and others I spring out of bed as if there’s not enough seconds in the day.

Some days doing my best is waking up right at six, deciding to actually go to school, eating lunch and actually being hungry when I do, listening to every word that is spoken in algebra, going to work and not forgetting the syrup once, being okay with my tips for the night, and having the motivation to stay up until 3 a.m. doing homework.

The others, my best is waking up at 6:57 a.m., realizing that nothing in the world is going to get me out of that bed, and if I did, I wouldn’t be able to be okay without crying or ending the day with a panic attack, going back to sleep, waking up at 1:12 p.m., planning to do homework all day but my heart just can’t get in it, and going to bed.

My best is not always the same, but I am always doing my best. I am always trying to be my best me and make the day the best possible.

Thank you for always being proud of me, Mom. I’m doing my best, I promise.