.

Confidence.

From the Latin root "com", meaning "with",

and "fidere" meaning "to trust."

     As a child, I felt that I have always lacked something in myself. My mind--being as undeveloped as it was--was incapable of conjuring the word. Even in adolescence, I might have used the term "freedom." I felt trapped in the walls of my mind. Who I liked, what I thought, what I wanted to do--they were things that, in a sense, bound me from showing the person who lied behind the mask. But, that word--freedom--that was not what I had lacked, I can tell that much now. It was confidence. Not just in the sense of hopelessness in myself, but the lack of hope of someone I could confide in.The lonesomeness had been brought on by myself--I was the captured, and yet I was also the captor. I could not be the one to free me. Because of that condition, I needed someone--anyone who could understand the thoughts and feelings and wants of my being. Finally, upon the dawn of my adulthood, I have confessed--to a person of similar, but not same, thoughts and feelings and wants. And I can breathe now, because I have gained what I have lacked my entire life. Confidence--or rather, a confidant.