I hate the fact that I've always had to sacrifice dreams for reality; passions for life. As a kid, my family was poor. Not poor enough to starve or anything like that, but we had the bare minimum and none of the cool things the other kids at school had. Mom always made sure that we had food on the table and the bills were paid, or at least kind of paid, and after that there was no money. I had to quit all the things I loved just so we could eat. I had to tell my voice coach that even though he thought I was his most promising student, my oldest sister's husband had just quit his job, so we needed to give them money. I've never gone to college because we don't have the money and according to my family, no one would give me any sort of help because my grades in high school were so crap.

Photography is something I used to do every single day. Whether it was thought out planned out shoots, or just spontaneous ones with my sisters kids or my friends. It's something I love to do, a way that I speak my ideas, my thoughts, my feelings. My camera broke last month. I've found the one I want to replace it with. It's around $900. I told Mom this morning and she just laughed at me. I told her my plan, and she laughed harder.

I can barely afford to put food on the table, but I don't care. I will have this camera. I will take all my food money, all my extra money, and put it into an account for this camera. I want it so badly. And I'm sick of losing everything I love to do because life gets in the way.