Stuck in the middle

"Hey! Don't write yourself off yet, its only in your head you feel left out and looked down on. Just try your best, try everything you can, and don't you worry what they tell themselves when you're away. It just takes some time, little girl you're in the middle of the ride, everything will be just fine....." -Jimmy Eat World, The Middle

Middles are a pill because even though a chunk of the journey is behind you, you still haven't reached that brass ring, that stretch that shows you all your steps have been working you closer to something real, rather than the dream of reality you build up along the way. Why we put our hopes in dreams is beyond my ability to understand--dreams let you down down and again because the real world will never fully measure up. Dreams are what sustains us, gets us up out of bed in the morning, but they are never really attainable, are they? I am hoping and wishing and dreaming and trying to keep my head up as I move forward but I can't stop hurting myself along the way. It's not deliberate but I still do it--you think I'd learn by now. Dreams are wonderful, but they also hurt. They may be nothing more that hopes and desires and make-believe but oh how they crush me beneath their crumbling foundations.