MirMakesMusic

I’ve been doing some work here and there on a couple indie projects, nothing special, also been trying to finally close the door on some acute personal issues; escape from some ghosts in my past.

It’s been hard, and a lot of the time I’ve felt like I’m just broken - I’ve never been sure how to just feel good about myself, and the happiest I usually feel is some cheap excitement over the music I’ve made: a lonely pat on the back, courtesy of me.

I don’t really have friends in my area, not anymore. Whenever I try to meet people or make a connection, things just don’t click, and when they do, it feels stunted, no room for growth, not enough overlap or care in interests, and I find it impossible to speak freely. Since around this time last year, this has only gotten worse, and I nearly hit my breaking point a couple months back.

With help from people I only knew online for virtually a decade, I was able to scrape myself off the floor, and I think that if it weren’t for them, I’d likely not be here now.

As I write this, I’m 7 hours away from travelling home from a trip to London. This entire experience here has been overwhelming and just a slap in the face; a wake-up call for me. I’ve been trying to find friendship like a headless chicken looking for a rainbow, but always too shy or afraid to just settle down with the people I’m already friends with.

The stigma of ‘online v. offline’ friends kept me from ever really being comfortable - I have Aspergers, and I’ve had nothing but disastrous outcomes with those I met and befriended in person long before they knew me in a more verbose and open environment; that is, online. I’ve been forced and forcing myself to interact in a way that never felt natural to me, and I’ve left stunted and inordinately conservative first impressions that were later juxtaposed very jarringly against my more exuberant personality in online conversation - that’s not to imply those reading would have seen this side of me just yet, though I may come out of my shell more in the future.

Anyway, meeting with several friends in London, I’ve felt scared, humbled, happy, and deeply saddened all at once:

I’ve been saddened by where I am as a person and how I’ve viewed myself so negatively for so long;

I’ve been scared of having that self-doubt and self-loathing validated in my interactions, that this new inverse variation of the path that’s been tread with my offline friendships would lead to that same depressing outcome;

I’ve been humbled because those lofty and terrible expectations never bearing fruit, in fact being invalidated quite quickly out the door;

And I’ve been happy, actually happy - a terrible, terrifying and long-atrophied feeling that I can’t remember ever experiencing in such volume or intensity;

This experience has made me feel comfortable for the first time in 6 or 7 years.