To Lift This Burden

Have you ever wondered why leaders are rare? Why most people prefer to follow the crowd rather than be the leader of the crowd? It's because being a leader is a burden and a heavy one at that. It's taking responsibility for more than yourself. Every decision you make is going to eventually affect the rest of your friends and group. It's made me understand why the cow in the Chinese calendar is attributed to be natural leaders. A cow is a beast of burden used to push plows, pull carts, etc etc. I personally have fucked up quite a bit. I don't feel like I deserve some of the friends I have cause of it. I've been a negative influence as much as a positive one on my close friends. I'm a person that people would as easily rally behind as against. There's more guilt that I get faced with from every action, even the positive ones. I anticipate bad coming out of whatever I do. My biggest worry is that what I decided to do is going to blow up in my face even more than I expect. And every month my "family" grows. When I say family I mean friends, my personal family is horrible. This is how my house works. My mom lives in her room, my brother lives in the basement, my dad lives in the living room. I'm the only one that is ever out of my room and in the basement, then up in the kitchen and living room, and checking in on my mom. I'm the grown up. My parents and older brother are more like children because I'm the one that does the work. My family of friends though, I'm not in charge of all of them. Thank "god" I'm not in charge of all of them. But my level of influence spreads a good distance across them. It works just like any other family. There's direct and extended. My direct family is made up of friends that I consider close, and even then that grows every month. I just have that charisma that allows me to get someone to open up to me. People know to come to me and I let it be known, I will always be the one to listen. But a life alone is quite sad. Even though I have a crap load of friends and a lot of close friends that I could trust with any secret, I still feel alone. Any girl that I find to be a kindred spirit with a dark distorted side of her isn't interested in me. I become a brother figure instead. I guess that's what I will always be, the big brother. In my family of friends I'm responsible for a lot of them. If I didn't bring up some ideas they wouldn't be in some of the shit they are. People wonder why I always babble dark and deep lines of words about being alone and pained. It's because there's nothing else for me to feel. I thought it out and every single action I've made will lead to pain. It can bring happiness, but it always ends in pain. I guess it's the one reason I don't "Lift This Burden" because what would be the point? If I were to end it, all I'd be doing is releasing more sadness into the world. I just have to bear the burden. But sometimes I just don't think I'll last until my senior year, much less until the Summer. Not with all the pain I'm stuck feeling when I'm alone and by myself. If only my life weren't just a mixing pot of drama.