the best parts of lonely.

sorry, guys.

after tonight, i'm deleting this thang, so if anyone has any interest in knowing me outside of tumblr, you can message me. 

otherwise.... 

I didn't know anyone here. I didn't have a car or a license, so I couldn't get out of the house. I couldn't have attempted to meet anyone new, had I even had the desire (which, of course, I did not), and living in a suburb basically just reinforced the hopelessness I very nearly wanted to feel.

I was alone in the house until my mother and my 5 year old brother got home between 6:30pm and 7pm every weeknight. They went to bed around 8pm. 

I was isolated.

I became hermit-like. I began questioning where I was, and how I'd gotten there. I was hard-pressed to even go outside long enough to get the mail. Once the sun went down, and my family was in bed, I might go out to the patio and smoke a cigarette, or call a friend, but be caught outside in the daytime? ... It became scarier with each passing day. I felt as though simply poking my head out the door was dangerous, and some secret alarm I didn't know about would go off in every other house on the street...alerting these "unfamiliars" to my inexplicable existence in this strange neighborhood....

During the day I was glued to the computer, or I was watching some bullshit I didn't really care about on TV.  I was searching old friends on facebook. I was crying. I was mourning the loss of a life which was so torn in two as far as what I used to have and still needed, and what I should never have allowed myself to have....I started hearing voices in the computer monitors. I started to feel my familiar mood swings take startling, and unfamiliarly giant leaps in either direction. Up and down, and up again. I was pacing in circles. I was becoming ridiculously intrigued by one thing one minute, then forgetting why I even cared the next. I had a notebook filled with facts about the most random shit from the different days in which I decided I needed to know all about that particular thing, person, whathaveyou. Most pages stopped midsentence.

Somehow, at some point, I heard about this website, and decided "why the fuck not?".  It seemed ok, and I liked how simple the format was. I still remember trying to figure out what my first posts should be. I'd never had a  "blog" before. Myspace didn't count.  

Oddly enough, this refuge for the introverted, and socially anxious managed to bring me closer to people I may have never thought to speak to. Even a few from my past, whom I had "known" for years, yet never truly met.  In this way, tumblr was actually an incredible aid to me. I didn't feel so alone anymore, and I suppose I wasn't. 

A few months, and then a year passed, and I had real-life, outside-of-the-internet acquaintances/friends again. Cool. More time passed and they were more like friends/acquaintances. I was moving on. I didn't think about the past as much (not that it will ever leave me, nor would I wish it to...not completely), and I was more concerned with trying to be social...you know, "IRL social"....

In the past year, more things have changed, but not in the same dramatic fashion as they have before. And, it's not that I'm handling things any better than I used to, it's not that I've "learned" to "deal"...or however you'd like to say whatever it is I'm saying....because that's not where I'm about to go with this.

The whole point of this, now, ridiculously long post that none of you will take the time to read, is that, I think I'm done. i think this little experiment ran its course a long time ago, but I held onto the whole experience, because I still get lonely. I still feel panicky. Compliments, kind words, and "notes" from strangers....they can't really do anything for me anymore. I don't want them to do anything for me anymore. I have no idea if this random spark of almost-positivity will last or not, but I think I'm going to go ahead and jump on it.

I'm saying goodbye to tumblr, and my personal pretend land where a picture comment, or a reblog, makes me feel better about not trying to talk to someone new outside of this computer screen. I don't want to refresh my activity page anymore...I'd rather just....refresh.