QUOTE : Some days I wonder if they have the slightest clue what’s going on in my life. Steve says maybe it’s because I live in my own little world and they aren’t invited, so it’s easy for them to just assume everything’s okay. There’s probably something to that. But there are days I wish I got half the attention from my folks that Steve gets from his. The good half, of course. I still show them my drawings sometimes, but the responses are all pretty much the same. “That’s great, T. Why don’t you put it on the fridge?” “Cool, man. Leave it on the table and I’ll take it to work.” “I love it. Do me a favor and take the trash out, will you?” It’s not that they don’t look. They always look—for three seconds, every time, as if they were counting in their heads—but I’m never sure they really see what I want them to. I guess it happens to everyone. You get pushed off to the side, or you just learn to blend in, stay out of the way, merge with the crowd. And you start to think that maybe you’re not the center of the universe anymore. Maybe you’re not as awesome or creative or talented or worthy of attention as you originally thought. But in your head, at least, you can still be all those things. You can be the hero at the center of it all. The man with the plan. The one who leads the way.