I haven't been here in a while.
A lot's happened since I last wrote.
I can't really get into it, partly because of how complicated it is, partly because it's not just my story to tell. But I can say that something's wrong with me. I'm not completely sure of what it is, but I have a good guess.
It's me.
There's a chapter in Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz called "Community", in which he describes his experience of living with a group of guys under one roof after living alone in the country for a while, and how difficult it was for him to get used to it.
Something about feeling alone creates a very odd thing in the human soul. On the one hand, we begin to crave contact, contact that is deep and meaningful and sincere, that gentle touch of two human souls truly acknowledging each other's existence, if only for a moment. Sometimes it's as simple as an honest, friendly smile, and sometimes it's as deep as a conversation that lasts for five hours and delves into the deep details of life, and all its pain and joy. It's a connection we need with at least moderate frequency to survive.
On the other hand, we become addicted to ourselves, to the silence of being the only soul within reach. In the company of ourselves there is no reason to look beyond our own mind, and the convenience and comfort of this is a very strong thing. We come to believe we are the only thing that truly exists, that the rest is just a background for our drifting consciousness while we keep ourselves company.
And it is so very poisonous.
I think long-term loneliness, the kind that has gone on for long enough to have a serious effect on the mind, is a kind of insanity, less severe and much more easily cured than a mental illness, but still powerful enough to be concerning.
My dad told me he was worried about me. And as that question hit the air, I was suddenly very afraid. I had been lying to myself about how I was doing, whether I was going crazy. The haunting dreams of relationships with my friends and family gone wrong, usually focused on one person in particular in each dream, have been shaking me for a while now. They're not all that frequent, maybe once a week. But in them I am confronted with either the monstrosity of my narcissism in its full force, or the soul-crushing weight of being left alone, so very alone. Both of them leave my mind flailing for reality for at least a couple of hours after my eyes are pried open, and for those first waking moments I wonder if this is what it's like to go insane.
The bitter thing is that the only thing I really need is human interaction, something that is always present in too small a quantity and too shallow a depth, with the curing potency always out of reach.
And I wonder to myself, where do I belong?
I don't belong with the other homeschoolers. I'm too broken down and too much of a stranger to fit in with them at this point.
I definitely don't belong with public schoolers. They scare me, because I feel like their whole world is based around evaluating others, and I will certainly fall short of their standards. They're well-established in groups by now too, anyway.
The people who care the most about me, who I feel I could really deeply connect with, are either adults with busy lives or people living so far away that I barely have a hope of ever even seeing their face without the aid of a wireless signal.
So where do I belong, really?
I think searching for the answer is the only way to climb out of this ever-worsening dream I feel like I'm living in. I long to live in reality for longer than a day, to breathe the air of the living world through the darkest hours of the night and never slip back into the nightmare of my lonely mind.
I have had enough of being alone. It's time to start the search.
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