Separation Anxiety

My guess is that at least half of the turmoil I suffer through is caused by separation anxiety. The rest is caused by my own inabilities to be a rational thinker (I'm a very peachy person, guys, trust me). Ironically, those two parts of me kind of like to hold hands quite often. I know what you're thinking: How can someone who is such a little loner be haunted by so many feelings about being apart from another human being? I can't answer that question at all, incidentally. But the thing that most people fail to understand about my case of separation anxiety is that I live in complete fear about 75% of the time.

Being roughly two hours from home (whatever that is, I have multiple homes these days), it's hard. And considering some of the events that have taken place while I have been away from home (and even some things that have occurred while I was home), it can be very scary. And the resulting problem for me is that I am constantly thinking, "Shit, what if that happens again!" or "What if something happens to me and no one is there?"

And I understand that these life events, the things that happened before and the things that will happen in the future are out of my control. There is still that feeling like everything is going to fall to pieces right in the palms of my hands. Sometimes I get the courage to say "Hey, I have these feelings and I wanted you to know because I love you and I'm sorry if it makes you uneasy and I'm sorry if you can't handle it!" But too often it feels like a one-sided conversation.

Me: Please
Me: Please, don't leave me
Me: I need you
Me: I miss you
Me: I love you
Me: Don't break on me 

And that is another thing people don't understand.

Some might consider me clingy or needy or desperate, but that's not the case. I live in fear of being left for dead by the people that take up the most room in my heart. The people that I would jump through hoops for and sacrifice the world for in a blink of an eye if they asked.  It's a living Hell sometimes. 

I don't need for people to understand why I have this anxiety or how I feel when I'm suddenly struck by this immense amount of fear. Most of the time, I don't tell people and it's not something anyone is bound to notice from the outside. And you shouldn't worry about me either. Because you'll see that I'm fine when I'm able to unleash the infinite amounts of love I've been hoarding in my chest since I last saw you. And you'll feel the love. And you'll either give me love back or you won't.

The beauty of separation is that it sometimes makes the heart grow fonder. And the sadness of separation is that sometimes it kills the seeds that you planted long before. But there is always the hope that love will keep it alive.  

Let's keep it alive. 

My Internet Friends and Me

While a majority of grown-ups and people who were raised on something other than the great and power World Wide Web are hesitant to venture out into the not-so-safe areas of the cyber universe, I can say that I have been there and done that, and you what I figured out? Every adult who has ever told me that everyone on the Internet is a pedophile was lying to me. They all told me about the dangers of talking to strangers on the Internet, and I nodded in agreement, but my impressions of the lurkers of the Web quickly changed when I finally swam out and ... touched the butt.

When I was about 13 or 14, I got really into web design and web coding (because what 13 year-old girl doesn't love twiddling her fingers in Paint Shop Pro and CSS coding?). I fell in love with my hobby, and started looking for places to showcase my skills and knowledge. I joined staff teams for a few websites (run by young people) that specialized in graphics for, and don't you dare judge 13 year-old me, Neopets (yeah, like guild layouts and user-lookup layouts. I told you not to judge me). This gave me tons of practice to learn new coding and find new brushes and styles on Paint Shop Pro 9 (because I couldn't, and still can't, afford Photoshop at the time). Eventually, towards the end of 8th grade, I talked my dad into letting me buy my own domain and get paid hosting so that I could have my own website to offer graphics on. I called it InsaneTruth.net because I was lame and weird but thought I was insanely cool.

One of the last pieces of graphic design I did during my prime
(click for bigger view)

Anyway, around that same time, I had an affiliate (basically link 4 link, now) on my site and she had a message board (or mb if you want to be hip) called Splash MB on her domain. I joined it because why not? It was there that I ended up meeting my genuine best friends during high school. Everyone on there was between the ages of 12 and 18 and primarily female (with the exceptions of some...
questionable characters from the UK).

We all grew together and had inside jokes and leaned on each other during hard times and, yes, there was drama. I learned how to write fan fiction and about British television and who Gaspard Ulliel was. We fangirled over Twilight together... and then later hated every single aspect of it. Oh, and there was a fictional dude named Pedro, but that's a story for a night when I'm really drunk and full of pizza.

Eventually, the message board died, but I continued to talk to a couple of girls every single day on a website called Plurk (it's like twitter, but lame). We skyped, added each other on FaceBook, discovered Tumblr, and continued to grow as young women together. During late night skype sessions that were filled with gossip, innuendoes, and laughs, we put ourselves on the line and secured our most private secrets with each other. My life became full of sexy jokes about geometric angles, secret chatter about the French exchange douche, and Ringo Starr's dramatic plead for NO MORE FANMAIL. PEACE AND LOVE! We watched TV shows together and freaked out over bands (even ones each individual didn't care for... we just supported each other's interests no matter what). We had it made. We had a time...

Always and forever

Honestly, these girls probably know more about my four years of high school than I remember. They know every crush, every geometry class scandal, every single time I was blocked on FaceBook, every Jonas Brothers concert I ever attended, and even about the first time I fell in love. For someone who doesn't easily trust or open up about anything, looking back, I gave a lot of myself to those women.

We don't talk like we used to anymore. Some of us went off to college and started new lives that didn't allow us to spend every waking minute online, and others just matured out of the awkwardness of being in middle school and early high school. We're still FaceBook friends who wish each other the best on our respected birthdays, we follow each other's Tumblrs, and every once in a full moon, we catch up on each other's lives as if we never stopped talking.

You can say that online friendships don't count, but I'd like you to think about what makes a friendship. Is it seeing someone in person? Is it being in the same city? Being able to hug the other? No. Its none of those things. Friendships are made on trust and laughs and common interests. Distance means nothing. And that's what I had with these beautiful women.

So, thank you, Ale, Jellaw, and Roni. You guys will forever be in my heart. <3 

Release.

[The following is an excerpt from April 1, 2013]

It comes once the sun has risen and the beeping alarm blares once again in my ear. A moment of panic. A moment of mere heartache that thumps and pounds and thrashes inside of my chest at the speed of life. A gust of breath fills my lungs, and I remember why I didn't sleep well and why the gastric acids in my stomach are churning once again. Like every morning since the endless night.

I check my phone. The light blinds me briefly. My eyes adjust. Nothing. 


Am I a skeleton or girl? I cross my toes for luck. Get out of bed.

Please...

I brush my teeth, wash my face in the dark, put on a fresh pair of clothes that don't match or fit correctly because it doesn't matter either way. Like clockwork, I prepare for a day I must face exhausted and dazed and stressed beyond oblivion.  Guzzle 4 glasses full. Put on socks.

Did you put on socks this morning?

Check my email. Spam. Spam. Spam. Worthless school announcements. Spam. Facebook notifications. Spam. Delete my emails. All of them.

Should I eat? Am I hungry? Do I need this? I grab a cereal bar and call it a day with a side of multivitamins. Swig and swallow. Wrong pipe. Ouch. 

Did you remember to eat? 

40 days and 40 nights. A sigh of relief. A sigh of desperation calling for one more night, one more touch, one more heartbeat lullaby singing you softly to sleep. Hush. Hush. Don't wake. Don't stir. Hold me closer, tiny dancer....

The agenda is simple. Class. Eat. Class. Eat. Workout. Shower. Sit in wonder, procrastinating away until the due dates zoom in on the points of panic attacks and sleepless nights and falling eyelashes and bags of Sour Patch Kids on my tongue. And I wonder why I'm no fun. 15 minutes to kill.

Did you have a good yesterday? I wanna know. 

My mind blanks. I wonder about why it happened and why me and why you and why us and why the sun still shines even when you're not smiling. Can't stop thinking. I could have stopped this. I could have cried wolf. I could have saved you. Shame on me. Tsk tsk tsk.

Please...

Log-in. Tightened shoelace lungs. Dust bowl tongue. Goosebumps like rockets.

5 hours. 

Release.