Torn

I'm not used to feeling vulnerable.

I don't even know where to start to explain.

Growing up, I never really had a lot of people to turn to. I had a couple friends, but the only place we ever really hung out was a school. That hasn't ... really changed. At all. I have a few people I can call real friends, but the others are all just acquaintances. And those people, I don't go up to them. I don't burden them with my problems. I don't intrude into their lives.

Sure, I've had my parents to go to throughout my life, but I've been pushing them away. I just don't want to explain to my mother that I feel abandoned and alone.

But it wasn't just tonight. It's been my whole life.

Excuse me if I don't make sense from here on out in the journal, but I'm just trying to keep sitting here instead of throwing myself onto my bed and screaming silently to myself.

See, that's what I do though. I don't call someone and pour my problems onto their shoulders. I hardly ever articulate what I'm feeling, what I'm thinking. I hold everything all in until I reach some breaking point. Then I find a place to curl up and be alone for a couple hours and just cry until things fall back into perspective for me. I won't have anyone there to sit beside me and hold me in their arms while I relive the pain. I refuse to let anyone share my pain. I feel uncomfortable when people do that to me and I can only feel like I'm ... bothering them.

My social fear - it's been there forever, mind - is that people only let me hang around because they can tolerate me. Anyone I feel like I have a connection to, they just don't have the guts to tell me that I'm not wanted. I think this about nearly everyone. Why? Because I've done that to a few people. I hope to high hell that I've cut ties with them by now, but I still feel like they haven't taken the hint.

I kind of told Jake this tonight. Cici was in his truck and he was standing outside the window that she was sitting at, but I poured my heart out to him. I don't think he even knew.

I told him that I've been alone my whole life. I didn't have anyone to have my back when I got in a confrontation. I stood up for myself and those I considered my friends. I beat those that tried to beat us down before they could get to me or my friends. I thought of myself as some emotional rock. I know better now.

Wes always tells me at work that I don't have any friends. I don't tell him that that strikes me exactly where it hurts. I take it in stride.

I told Jake this ... and what he told me, is that he knows how that feels. He's been alone his whole life. That when he goes home, he's going to go lie on his bed and keep calm.

Except, that when I see him leave, he always has at least one girl in his truck. He leaves work, and he isn't alone. Maybe emotionally, but physically.

My emotional attachment, I don't do it with real people. They can abandon me, they can hurt me. Instead, I turn to my comics, my movies, my books, and my television shows. I usually attach myself to the TV more than anything.

Lately it's been Flashpoint. I feel like I can feel where most of the characters are coming from. I have a huge fangirl attachment to nearly all of them: Ed, Spike, Wordy, Sam ... Jam. Jam being Sam/Jules. I actually squealed with delight when those two hit it up again after a couple seasons of tension.

But the last episode I watched before going to work, Wordy resigned from the team. I can't be sure, but I think it's for good. I cried. I actually cried and had to wipe away the signs before I integrated into society. Before I talked to those people on the phones.

Whenever you think you've found something, something happens for it to be taken away from you.

I feel like it's all some vicious circle. I distance myself so that I can't get hurt. Every time I take a risk, I end up getting hurt somehow, some way. But in doing so, I don't really make any new friends. When I try hanging out with the guys at work, I still feel like they won't approach me as they would anyone else. Owen told me straight up that he thinks I'm just weird weird, not funny weird like him or most of the guys I work with. So I try socializing tonight instead of going home, hope that I can get through to Jake that I care for him and wish that he would be there for me at least on some level, and I'm abandoned.

You know, you have people tell you that they'll be there for you. I've had friends tell me that, I've told people that as well. I don't deal with emotion that well - hell, I don't deal with people well - but I at least make an effort for those that matter to me. I feel like my efforts are in vain. When you need someone to be there and hold you while you express your pain through tears and wails, you're alone.

It's the story of my life. I tried changing the course of it the past few months, but nothing has changed. I'm just as alone as ever, all I'm doing is deluding myself into the brighter picture.

To feel better about myself, I've been working out to get back into shape. I'm already gaining some of the tone I lost while doing absolutely nothing. My endurance is building quickly, as well as my strength. I take pride in this, but there's only so much I can do.

My friend ... the one friend I feel like who would do so much for me, because she's admitted that I'm the only friend that would do the same for her ... she told me that we should drop our lives where they are and postpone it via road trip. I'm tempted. I'm sorely tempted.

No matter what I'll do, my mom and dad will frown at me. I'm not good enough. I make too many mistakes, am not ambitious enough for their goals. I go to college, but there's just something I'm not doing right. My mom tells me that she just got booted out the door. I think it's more jealousy on her part, that I proclaim what I want to do and she never had the chance to do it, but she tells me that I can't do it because life won't let me. Life dictates that I need to live it a certain why. I can't travel until I get a job ... and then I'll be tied to that. I can't work at Classic Pizza because they won't be as flexible. I forget all of the things she brings up, and she has more reasons than those. But those ... she said those.

I'll say right now, I have commitment issues. Not just to people as friends, not just to my projects, but to my attention span. I get shot down so many times, I'm told what to do and how to do it ... and it's not just mixed messages. I pretend I'm bullet proof, that nothing gets to me. But I'm human. I fuck up.

I cry. Oh, if only you know how hard I cried during this journal ... and exactly where the sobs got worse.

I can't feel my hands now. They tingle. They're numb. I don't want to feel numb, but nor do I want to feel like a sack of worthless potatoes.