I just.
You made me weaker, damn you.
This didn't used to be a problem, time off was a Luxury. Being able to enjoy myself and play games I wanted to play and do what I wanted to do was a Privilege I have latched onto desperately as reality and capitalism set forth to tear it from my grasp.
And then you came along. Both of you. With your talks of home, and making it, and showing me what a home with someone I was in love with could look like. That darling, droll banality of simply doing chores and playing games together that became such a desperate Need in my veins.
I could exist alone, before. Alone was peace, it was quiet, it was rest.
Now alone is to be without you, an ache in my stomach and soul that Something is wrong if I cannot have you. That I cannot rest until I know you're in the other room or within arms reach or that I am resting besides and within you.
To be alone is agony, now. Even as my brain screams for it even as I preform the routine of Relaxation even as my body physically churns with Alone's absence my mind churns more at Your absence.
I could make myself to go events alone and it would Cost. Every social event Costs, but I could still do it. Now I'm presented with the concept I could bring my heart's desire along with me and sociality becomes a Treat? A little excursion to disrupt the day to day with being out and about with my lover and damn the rest I have You I could sit through Church so long as I got to press my elbow gently to yours.
And so, in this sudden Desire to be out and about in the sudden resounding Snap that is my knees bending backwards against everything I've ever felt growing up I Want To Live and make a Life here. I want Friends I want To Go Hang Out I want to go show people the crappy movies I love and heckle at my favorites and theirs together I want to Be Someone I want to Have People Around Me Who Care I Didn't Want This Before This Is Exhausting To Even Conceive of and I Need it.
And in absence of it, I feel pain.
I sit here, existing (barely) in the standard I have clawed my way up to and have pursued for the greater part of my conscious existence and I feel pain of the absence of more. I feel the pain of my standards which have served, blessed, and protected me more times than I can count simply being Insufficient now. I want More but there's a reason why I didn't just naturally fall into it.
I have abilities that have atrophied, limitations causing me to wash my hands again and again and again before going forth and Socializing. I have tendencies that must be met and a disproportionate amount of recovery time and exhaustion that comes with both meeting and not meeting those tendencies...
But I have a much better chance now. A chance for better. Those tendencies are less rigid around you. You, like all partners, introduce a variety and a flexibility that wasn't present before but in a new and fantastic twist you work With my tendencies you Celebrate my dysfunctional Me. I am not a crutch to work around I am Loved and I am a Boon to be around even in my most solitary moods.
And there is more here, of course. I am cognizant that other things have caused relaxation to be less relaxing and online socialization to be less fulfilling. But at the heart of it:
