Disquietude

When I visualize it, its like a layer of impermeable metal just below my skin, silencing and caging in the true me. I don't know the true me anymore. I only know the scared me.

The scared me is the one that showed up when the real me went away. The scared me is the only one I've known for a few years now. The scared me fits in, kind of. She smiles and laughs with people that are kind of her friends. She is normal, kind of. She is happy, kind of.

She always looks over her shoulder. Twice. She doesn't like to talk to new people. She always worries. What do they think of her? Are they judging her? Of course they're judging her. They think she's a fool, don't they? They're laughing. Always laughing. Always judging. Always hating.

She doesn't believe in herself. She needs to be reassured, even though some part of her knows she's good enough. That part is small, and though it screams at her constantly, it just can't make her believe it.

The real me was beautiful. She was delightfully awkward, she was quirky, she was free. She was happy. She wasn't terrified of making mistakes - she just lived. She had close friends, she was capable of caring - really and truly caring. I guess that couldn't last.

She went away and I became jaded. That layer of impermeable metal formed around my heart first, then spread to the rest of me. I became cold and scared. I lost my faith in kindness and became suspicious of everyone's intentions.

I feel like I take up too much space. Every step down the hallway or across the street is agony. I am clumsy and big and awkward - incapable of just being like everyone else, if only for a moment.

I ruin everyone's fun because I don't know what to say. I don't think like them. I think critically, analyzing everything, and always worrying. I don't know how to have a real conversation for a long period of time. I don't have anything to talk about.

That's a lie. I have lots to talk about, I'm just never given the opportunity to say it. Or maybe I do, but I just don't take it. I assume that so much is understood that I don't have to say it. Maybe that's part of my problem.

I stick out like a sore thumb -or an overused cliche in a rambling blog- I feel like everyone is staring. I know they hate me. I know they're asking themselves why I can't just be normal. Why can't I just be normal?

Hate is a strange thing. Like love, it twists your heart and your mind to think differently. It deludes your emotions and drains you of the ability to care about anything else. But unlike love, when you hate somebody, there is no joy to offset the pain. There is only pain and hate and a throbbing pulse where your figurative heart used to be.

I think I hate myself a little bit. And that scares me a hell of a lot. I hate that I'm so boring and so unusual and so.......Wrong. I hate that there is no one else in the world that thinks like I do, and if there is, I haven't met them and probably never will. It isn't fair.

Life isn't fair. People say that all the time, but I doubt its true. If it was, everyone would be disadvantaged in some way. There would be more people like me, doomed to pessimism and hopelessness for their differences. There is fairness in the world. It just seems like I'm missing out on it.