He was hungry. He was hungry all the time. His stomach felt shrunken and shriveled inside him. Sometimes it gnawed, as though his stomach were eating itself, and sometimes there was merely emptiness. Sometimes he could pretend that he wasn't hungry.

Yet, he was afraid of food. The gods had touched him one day, and made him hunger for it constantly, while many others of his kind seemed to need little or even none. But he trembled at the sight of broccoli lumped on a plate. He bit his lip and looked nervously away when he saw a pizza delivery person. He was afraid of food, and yet he needed it so desperately.

Everyone else was able to eat so easily, when they needed to. Some of them even ate gracefully, their forks dancing to their mouths. He saw people around him slurping up Italian food, gulping down mixed drinks, nibbling delicately at beautifully displayed dishes full of exotic spices with enticing aromas. His stomach twisted with the mad need to dive headfirst into the food and scarf as much as his hands could pull to his mouth. Then, it twisted again, with fear, and he looked away, kept his head down, and walked on, to sit in cold, quiet solitude.

When he thought about eating, the worries immediately began buzzing in his head. "What if you eat it the wrong way? What if you use the wrong fork? What if you get some on your face, or make a mess? What if you eat something that's bad for you? What if you eat something that gives you gas, indigestion, heartburn? You'll get lost in the different types of food, the different styles of cuisine. You've only tried a few times, and boy did you fail at those. Remember that one time..."

He felt as though he had none of the tools necessary for eating. He felt as though he had no teeth, no salivary glands, no digestive enzymes. He had no tastebuds, he thought. He was naturally deficient. And while he knew this was silly, that he was the same as anyone else, he could not get over this feeling of deficiency, that he had been born with ruination and lack of ability festering in his heart, lurking to manifest itself again and again.

He watched the others eat. He smiled at the people who loved him, and told them that he was well. That he had eaten, or was going to eat soon. He pretended. He watched them scarf and sip, nibble and binge. Slowly, his body folded in on itself and he crumpled in a corner, unnoticed and forgetten. Eventually, his body consumed itself and he became nothing more than dust.

Three years ago I made a promise to a dead man.

The night was cool and dark. I stood at the beginning of the red earth and rock road that leads to what we call the Backside, and my cousin has termed God's Hollow. It is merely the back part of our property that we don't use for much. The path begins with a steep hill, slanting downwards into the darkness. Trees lean over the road like tall creatures peering blackly through the shadows. Overhead the night is clear and star laden, but there is only a sliver of moon that provides the barest suggestion of light.

Not much about our property frightens me. The woods have been my playground since I moved here about ten years ago. But that night, that road scared me a little. Angry that something on my property could frighten me, I considered it a challenge, and began to walk.

The night was incredibly still. I heard the crunch of my feet on the river rocks and gravel underfoot. Crickets sang as I walked past the hay field, heavy with dew laden alfalfa that would soon need to be harvested. The old broken down hulk of the bulldozer loomed to the left of me. The tangle of plants that grew through the machinery looked like wild black fur on the back of some beast.

After all the twists and turns in the road, fighting back the eerie idea that someone was watching from the trees, I passed the camouflage coloured hunting blind and walked into an open space. The open space was on top of a hill. Underneath my feet was mostly red earth, with sparse patches of grass growing here and there. Trees surrounded the hill, falling away a bit on one side to reveal a view of trees and distant hills. When the sun rose, it would rise over those distant hills in a glory of pink and gold.

On the hill was a single grave. The grave was covered with white pebbles, lined with small rounded bricks, and surrounded by various tributes from family members. It had the kind of headstone that lays flat on the ground, with the name of my uncle, his date of birth and death, and his final position in the military carved into it. A small rack of deer antlers and a tiny angel statue are the only items that stay the same around the grave. The rest, a Fourth of July bouquet, a faded spray of red and yellow flowers, and my own offering, a cross constructed of twigs and grass found around the grave, will change or disappear as time passes, to be replaced with other things.

Standing on the hill, the fact that I had been even a little nervous about walking down that road seemed silly. The worst thing I would have been likely to run into was a snake, and while there are many dangerous snakes in my part of the country, I'm not afraid of snakes. Yet it's so easy to be afraid of the unknown, to be afraid to take a step into the darkness.

I felt silly. Recent events in my life, coupled with the little-girl fear of the dark I had just experienced, contrived to make me feel weak. My uncle was a strong man in some ways, but weak in others. Though he was my favorite uncle, I knew he had serious shortcomings. He drank too much, and his past in special ops haunted him. He had bad taste in spouses; both of his marriages had fallen apart. He was also slightly racist, which isn't suprising given where he grew up. My area is something of a breeding ground for quiet racism even today. However, he tried to do what he thought was right and he tried to protect the people he loved. He had started his own business and worked hard to make it prosperous. Through all his faults, he was a good man.

I was wearing a necklace with a feather on it. I'm somewhat obsessed with feathers, and have a small collection. In my room, feathers burst from an abandoned bird's nest, a candle holder, a vase. As I stared down at his grave, I played with the silver necklace, thinking about strength and what it really meant to be strong. On a whim, I made a promise, for both myself and my uncle. I promised I wouldn't stop wearing the silver necklace until I learned what strength really was.

Since then, I have learned a little about it, both through experience and by studying people. But I haven't learned enough. Not nearly enough.

I learned that to be strong, a person must be decisive. If you try to teeter on top of the fence indecisively, then you're much easier to knock over than if you are on one side or the other. This doesn't mean that you have to be an extremist in things, I don't think. I think it just means that you have to make a decision, even if it's one based on moderation and compromise. To be strong, you have to choose something to use that strength on.

I've learned that only actions count. If you merely think something, or intend to do something, there will be no consequences or payoff until you externalize that thought in some way, either by acting on it directly or by discussing it with someone.

Strength is also about determination. Mahatma Ghandi and Adolf Hitler were both incredibly strong men who achieved much, though one man's achievements were admirable, whereas the other's were horrendous. However, they both persued their goals with dogged determination. Strength is about not being forced off your path.

These ideas are fairly obvious, but not always so easy follow through on. And it's sad to think that in three years, I've only begun to scratch the surface of what real strength is about. Perhaps it's because out of the three things that I've listed, I have the most difficulty with the first one. Decisiveness does not come easily to me, because I'm always either attracted to both paths, or equally repelled from both, and when one is at rest it is easier just to stay at rest. However, without making active choices (as opposed to choosing to do nothing/be passive), a person cannot even begin to learn their true strength, or to develop it further.

This is what is swimming through my mind as I find myself face to face with my next-to-last year of college, and my first semester of internships. I feel as though I am once again standing at the head of that dark path, about to step out onto a road that I can barely see. Except this road goes somewhere unknown, and the path is only half-formed. Part of me is thrilled about that, but part of me still feels that little fear that creeps around the pit of my stomach. However, even though I'm nervous, I'm going to take that step anyways, because if nothing else, it's a challenge.

Dear Future: I accept.