The Backstory

I basically have to get all this crap out there just so certain things in future post will (hopefully) make more sense.

On Halloween last year I was officially diagnosed with severe depression (most likely bipolar disorder), social anxiety disorder and OCD. I'm a mess, I know. This was a major contributing factor in my decision to withdraw from the University of Michigan and move back home.
Skipping forward to around New Year's: My dad breaks his arm at work. Doesn't sound too out of the ordinary; my dad works in a pretty hazardous place so things like this happen from time to time. The X-Ray and oodles of tests show that the arm break was a consequence of multiple myleloma. Even since then I have been helping my mum as best I can to care for him.
The thing to pay attention to in the link is the part where it gives an average lifespan of 2 years and only 3% survive past 10 years. My dad will be going to the Fred Hutchinson Center with my mum to receive a stem cell transplant which will hopefully give him 5 years. Beyond that the doctors are hoping the mighty FDA moves their bureaucratic ass fast enough to approve a few drugs that may give my dad life past year 5. This is a long shot.
It took two months for me to figure out that my dad will never be cured. When you're told a loved one has cancer, there is always the reassurance of a cure in your mind, but in this case we were told point-blank that a cure was completely beyond modern medicine.
So my dad might be dead in 5 years. That gives me enough time to graduate from college and perhaps get into grad school. Will I get married in 5 years? Will I even find Mr. Right? I've never been close to my dad, but I've always taken for granted the fact that he would be there to walk me down the aisle, spoil my children and forever treat me like I'm 10 years old.
Quite a backstory, right?

My New Motivator

What has happened to me? In most ways I am still the same person I was a year ago, but now my actions in public are somehow even more self-conscious than before and my actions in private and around family are tinged with apathy, regret and bitterness.
I made two major choices regarding my future and they blew up in my face; neither Pacific University nor the University of Michigan was compatible with me. Instead of recovering from the fall by facing the world again I am taking the easier route by staying close to home. My future it seems is now being determined by fear.
I am used to succeeding at whatever I set out to do, at least that is how things worked in high school. At Pacific I succeeded in classes with only giving a modicum of effort; as far as classes went, that was all I gave at Michigan and I had reasonable academic success. But now fear is telling me to hold back, stay in my comfort zone and wait for things to happen naturally. Somewhere in my heart, I know this feeling will permanently damage my career plans, but my fear has overridden sensibility.
A song by Rooney—“That Girl Has Love’—stirred these feelings to the surface. As I recall, this is song number two which feels strangely familiar to me:
“I don’t know a lot about her
But she, she knew a lot about me
The family seemed to love her, if what they say is true
The friends all shared the good times
Man, that girl has love
That girl has…

I, I didn’t have a clue then
That a kiss would change my whole life again
She walked into my room when I was all alone
She told I would date her from September ‘til December

Chorus: She doesn’t know, things will never be the same again
She’ll always be seventeen
That girl has love

She kept all her pain inside
Now she has got nothing to hide
At such a young age she took her own life
Now she’s seeing things that come in our dreams at night
She’s a dreamer

Chorus

That was too real to ever be fake
That was too strong to ever be forgotten
That girl has love”


Am I a sap or what?